Chaplain's Log
by JMK758
Summary: Three months after the Orville's mission to Xelaya as depicted in 'Lalaith', the ship takes on four new crewpersons. With that accomplished, their mission is to deliver supplies and equipment to a Colony before embarking on the next phase of their exploration. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Welcome Aboard

Author's Note: I started this story during the last weeks of Orville's first Season, then paused it because announced changes in Season 2 required alterations, so I put everything on Hold for what felt like forever.  
The usual legal Disclaimers about ownership and making money apply.  
In the first phase of this story's creation the real time was Christmas Eve 2018 and Season Two was to commence in a week.  
Now in real time a year has passed, it's three days to Christmas 2019, Season Two is history but _my_ story is _still_ set in the hiatus period between Seasons 1 and 2, so throw away your calendars and your Canon books.  
My previous story 'Lalaith' took place prior to the Season 1 episode 'Firestorm' while this one takes place three months after 'Lalaith' and, as I said, in the Season 1 / Season 2 hiatus months.  
Lieutenant McGee, new to the Orville, serves as my audience 'POV' character, seeing everyone and everything from a newcomer's perspective rather than someone who has known everyone for a year of Planetary Union time.  
Enjoy and Please Review. I live for Reviews.

Chaplain's Log  
by JMK758  
Chapter One  
Welcome Aboard

There are few things as beautiful, Captain Ed Mercer thinks, as nebulae, the billion year birth cradles of stars. Though the stars themselves won't coalesce until far in the future as super dense conglomerations whose gaseous pressure will ignite them into nuclear furnaces that will shine for ten billion years, the energized vapors illuminate uncounted octillions of cubic kilometers with colorful fields and tendrils that will inspire artists to capture the ethereal beauty of

"Captain," Lt. Cdr. John LaMarr says from his forward port side Navigation console, a compliment to Lt. Gordon Malloy's station at his right, and his call completely disrupts the blue and black uniformed ship-master's enjoyment of the momentous beauty. "The Tesla has just dropped out of Quantum Space, six hundred meters to our starboard stern."

"Precision flying," he remarks, not voicing his true feelings about the closeness of this rendezvous. As FTL space flight goes, this is virtually up their butts.

"I could have done it in four," Pilot Gordon Malloy declares.

"No doubt, but not today please." His own friendly rivalry with that ship's Mistress, Academy classmates as they were, appears to have inspired duels among the corresponding officers, a favorable sign of good morale - at least to his thinking.

After this addition of crew, he's happy to be moving further out. Back on Earth things are gearing up for a Conference of epic - read ridiculous - proportions. Every Head-of-State in the Planetary Union is assembling for a week long summit and this is an unfavorable sign of bad morale.

He is very happy to be headed downward toward the nadir of the galaxy preparatory to a six month exploratory mission, enough to give the crew ample time for introduction, integration and shakedown. They'd picked up a tremendous supply of seed and other farming products bound for the agricultural colony on Catonis II, and once that mundane chore is done and the supplies delivered, they're off to the mysterious depths of unknown space.

Orville has netted a plum assignment. After hundreds of years the exploration of the galaxy remains, and will continue for centuries to come, a true mystery, and this next phase of the coordinated effort sends Orville not out along the spiral arm but to the generally 'ignored' nadir, a straight down course to the supposedly more limited aspect of the Milky Way.

But first they have this duty.

x

As blue and black uniformed Kelly Grayson, seated beside him in the port side central Executive Officer chair, picks up her attention and posture, Lt. Alara Kitan turns at her port side Security / Communications board.

"Captain, the Tesla says they are ready to begin the transfer on your word."

"Thank you," he says to the red jacketed Xelayan, the while a silent look to the woman beside him signals his knowledge of her inattention and the hidden hope that she hadn't noticed his. "On screen, Lieutenant," he says in crisp tones of extra attention.

In his peripheral view he sees he hasn't fooled his Exec.

x

As the main screen normally displays so very well a wide panorama of the starry decked heavens in a 140 degree span, it can make one forget that this is a projected image until a square screen appears and takes up most of the central view.

The deck-to-overhead image, a reflection of their own bridge, shows a blue uniformed and skinned Retepsian female who occupies the matching starboard center position to their left while a male Adgocehan First Officer is seated to the right.

"Captain Vasnic," Mercer greets her with the familiar tones of long acquaintance. It has been a number of years since their graduation but in the past year plus since they'd resumed an equal footing and their old competition has resumed at full force.

x

In truth he's only had occasional contact with one other member of her race but Darulio doesn't count and he's never felt inclined to wonder how her First Officer - or for that matter the rest of her crew - manages the fascinations inherent in that command structure.

He'd learned a few months ago how Retepsian males go through their 'heat', has no idea if females do and doesn't want to find out. Considering the quiet chaos Darulio had caused by his mere presence, even if the situation had not been a matter of intent, he thinks that a pair of them would be a fearsome thing indeed.

The Adgocehan First Officer is pretty much an unknown. He has an Adgocehan in his own crew and is glad that Dann has stopped making suggestions about elevators, music and ways of sprucing up the ship. Kelly had assigned Yaphit as the go-to guy for suggestions on how to 'improve things' and it is remarkable how quickly the input has diminished.

x

"Captain Mercer, we're ready to start boosting your pathetic rowboat with some adequate staff."

"You sure you want to spare so many good people? We're on our way to deliver supplies to the agricultural colony on Catonis II and that yacht of yours is," he consults the chronometer, "nine minutes late to this rendezvous." He makes a show of settling back into his seat. "I was on the verge of taking a nap."

"Sorry to make you lose your beauty sleep. Your First Officer has had most of it."

He inspects the profile of the woman at his left. "So she has." His appreciative tone drops a notch. "We're going to discuss that, Commander."

"Sorry, sir," is her rejoinder, "but the Planetary Union won't spare you the time it would take to make an appreciable difference."

x

Mercer, resisting the drop of his jaw, returns his attention to his counterpart while thumbing toward his subordinate. "You see what I have to contend with?"

"Your fault. When she proposed you didn't _have_ to say 'yes'."

"Wait a – when she – _I_ proposed."

"Captain, all Earth women propose. They're just smart enough to make Earth men think it was their idea."

Mercer casts his gaze to the overhead. "I give up."

"I sincerely hope not. You're the only Earther I know who's any fun." But then she drops the point. "I have four deliveries."

"We're ready to receive them. We'll be sure to put them to work, toughen them up after their time on that yacht. Mercer out." He gives Alara a quick hand gesture, claiming the final word for this round.

x

It turns out not to be the final word as the Tesla, longer and taller than the Orville, begins a slow maneuver - it could as well be quick but would be less portentous - to come up beside them and consequently move its bow further and further forward along the left side of the panorama. He knows Vasnic would say this is for the convenience of aligning the Shuttle Bays set in their sterns but it does serve to allow the huge starship a graceful and leisurely repositioning in which to dominate their view.

x

Mercer has no intention of calling attention to the silent one-upwomanship. It will take a minute or so for the transfer, long enough to update the ship's record before leaving to greet their new crew. He could have done this earlier rather than wool-gathering but if it will help in delaying Vasnic for a little while then all well and good. He thumbs the control on his chair's arm rest.

"Captain's Log, Stardate 42012.22" is interrupted by a snort at his left and Mercer looks to his First Officer.

"You really gonna do that?" she challenges. "Seriously?"

"What, a simple, concise method of keeping track of time; last three digits of the year, two for the month, two for the date. What could be more useful?"

"From a five hundred year old television show."

"The staying power of a Classic."

"It'll never catch on."

"It'll catch on. Now do you mind?"

"No. Go ahead, knock yourself out."

"Thank you."

x

She turns forward again, settles herself in the XO seat with a muttered "Never catch on."

Gordon Malloy, at the forward right helm station, looks back to assure her that "It'll catch on."

"_Thank_ you," the beleaguered Captain says, grateful for the predictable support of his friend. Beside Gordon, Lt. Cmdr. John LaMarr is uncharacteristically silent.

"In fact I'm going to use it for my personal diary file."

"Now see what you've started?" Grayson challenges her C.O.

"Commander, if you don't mind I am _trying_ to get this log entry done _before_ this rendezvous is over."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine." He settles himself in his seat. "_Now_ I can get to this recording."

"You've been recording."

He looks at the control on his chair arm, the light is indeed on. "Damn it. Computer, delete all that feldercarb."

**Feldercarb deleted.**

x

"Fine. Record. Captain's Log, Stardate," he says with a steady glare at the woman beside him whose eyes are directed ahead with excessive innocence, "42012.22." He settles back. "Orville is on course for Catonis II to deliver a hundred fifty tons of seed and replacement farming equipment to the colony, but first we have rendezvoused with the Heavy Cruiser USS Tesla to take on new Personnel from Earth: Engineer Lt. George Saunders; Botanist Lt. Kevin Schaap; Astrophysicist Dr. William Harnell," he looks again at Grayson, "and Chaplain Lt. Crystal McGee."

Grayson gives him a side-wise look, moving only her eyes, and a small smile of accomplishment which he can't hold against her. He'd long ago come to appreciate the talents and abilities of his First Officer.

O

It had been three months ago, during the voyage from the planet Raquiel to Xelaya and the mission to transport the intended Regent and Queen of the island continent Malmoria when he'd had that conversation with Grayson and, over-stressed by the worsening situation, had said those fateful words: "This ship needs a Chaplain."

"She'd be the most overworked member of the crew," Kelly had replied.

'She? Well, that works.' he'd thought. 'But to business' "What do you think, Kel?"

"I've a name or two I could run by you."

That hadn't been what he'd meant, his focus had been upon their then mission but 'Okay, not to business, that'd be better,' he'd thought. 'If it were possible.'

"Exploratory vessels aren't assigned Chaplains," he'd told her. "Cruisers are. Battleships are. Space Stations are."

"And we handle more First Contacts than a fleet of Cruisers."

"You can't change Policy."

It had been the truth back then, but he'd reckoned without this woman's Word, Abilities and most especially her Contacts.

As she'd hinted, she'd looked into it and that look had been to Admiral Halsey who had seen her point, had consulted with his fellows and they too had seen the logic behind the proposal. Now additional berths on Mid- and Low-Level ships are opening for duly trained individuals of numerous species – and the honor of being the first such Mid-Level ship so blessed had gone to them.

O

He gives his former wife and now First Officer a discerning look. "In the meantime, it's hoped that the Reverend McGee will be able to assist our First Officer in dealing with having been a goddess."

Kelly virtually leaps forward, outrage leading to a near blistering objection but Mercer is grinning and she sees the 'Record' light is off.

She scores him the point.

x

"I hope she's not an old dog," Lt. Cmdr. John LaMarr declares from the forward port Navigator's station. The man divides his duties, for the present, between Navigation and Engineering though the newly arriving Lt. Saunders, together with Ens. Louisa Sportelli, assigned as backup from Beta shift to replace him at Navigation while he's in Engineering, will pick up some of the burden of his dual role until he can focus on a single line on the duty roster. Sportelli is nominally still on Beta but is also 'on call' for such times as he must be down below, leaving her with a somewhat chaotic duty/rest schedule until today's infusion of staff.

At the moment LaMarr's concern finds expression in his "I'd hate being psychoanalyzed by a dog."

"You kidding, man?" Gordon, on his right, enthuses. "She's _gorgeous_, a 23 year old Irish redhead, a seven sector call-out, a thionite dream, a holodeck goddess, a 42 on a scale of 1 to 5, a –"

'HHNNGH_RKK_MMM!' pulls his attention over his left shoulder to his beloved's station and glare. Even beyond never wanting to annoy her, there are some serious considerations associated with doing so. Alara would never step beyond public decorum and discipline, oh no, but private times can be made uniquely interesting.

'Then again,' LaMarr thinks, 'if Gordy's into redheads this month maybe I haven't done Louisa a favor by moving her up.'

x

Gordon quickly returns his attention to the forward screen with a dismissive shrug. "She's okay."

'But you're liable to visit Claire soon if you're not careful,' Mercer thinks. And while he'd enjoyed the enthusiastic man's take-down with nothing more than a simple throat clearing from his girlfriend, there's a more significant matter to address. "How do you know so much?"

"I…" he turns his seat to face his Captain and perhaps his doom, "kind of accessed the Personnel Transfer file."

"In your capacity as, what, Command?"

"Security?" Alara Kitan challenges, this time more than a throat clearing being her warning.

"Executive?" Kelly Grayson asks.

"Er, um, ah, direction?"

"Direction." Mercer is more interested. "What sort of direction?"

"You know, guidance, errr."

"You're planning upon offering our new Chaplain, what, Spiritual Guidance?"

"Well…." He'll very wisely say no more, lest there be no way to climb out of this mouth-dug hole.

"I'm supposing," Kelly observes, "that you didn't look for background on our new Astrophysicist."

"Well, he's this guy, you know."

"We'll take this up later," Mercer declares to stop the fun while leaving his best friend in no way relieved.

x

"Captain," Alara says, "the Tesla reports it is ready for transfer."

It is, in fact, the second time they'd sent that message and Mercer knows it'll provide Vasnic with fodder for their next encounter. He's had the pleasure of making his old classmate wait, but he doesn't want to overdo it, lest payback be a cosmic bitch.

"Signal them to proceed. We'll meet the shuttle. Commander, Alara, Isaac, John with me. Bortus, you have the Con. Alert Dr. Finn to meet us there."

When LaMarr turns he sees Louisa Sportelli waiting by the bridge door, he realizes that with his badly timed summons (he knew he'd be welcoming the officers and had sent for her When the Tesla had arrived) that she had to have heard that instruction and a renewed pang of guilt pricks him, and not only because he'll be tied up in Engineering for the rest of the shift.

As he passes her they exchange the symbolic baton and she heads toward their station, yet there's a rapid and silent exchange between them and the departing Captain. Nothing can be said here and now and that sharpens the sting.

x

The three had discussed, separately and jointly over the past three months, getting an additional Officer to serve as Navigator. Presently the duties of Alpha Shift have remained LaMarr's purview unless he is needed in Engineering, in which case Sportelli, of Beta Shift or Sam Harris of Gamma Shift will fill the post. If LaMarr had duties down below that required both him and A.C.E. Yaphit, if in the first half of Alpha Harris would remain at or return to the Bridge, and if after the mid-point Sportelli would start her shift early.

As always, those changes were unannounced and, in the time-honored tradition of 'Mice and Men', Sportelli would most frequently draw the extra shift.

There was _supposed_ to have been a Navigator among the new crop arriving now but once again the mice had exerted their influence in that the Captain of the USS Freedom had snatched up that man. Therefore, history maintaining its established course, it looks like Sportelli will continue to have her days interrupted, usually in the form of being thrown out of her bed.

And since their upcoming mission is for a three month duration, the prospects of changing the situation range from slim to none.

Three days ago, when the boot dropped and they'd lost Eric Fendelman, he'd gone to the Captain with a reasonable solution. 'If we're not going to change anything, at least bump her up to Lieutenant.'

'What about Harris?'

'She's better.'

'Really…?'

'He's good, she's better.'

'I'll talk to Command.'

x

Command, in the person of Admiral Kincaide, had said 'no'. LaMarr had gotten LC because the position and rank were both vacant, but Orville already has a Chief Navigator and a Chief Engineer and the fact they're the same man is irrelevant; Orville uses a workable solution and can continue doing so.

In the immortal words of that worthy, 'The skills of the Officers of that ship are nearly legendary, an excellent blend of talent and coordination to produce an outstanding team and it is never wise to mess with something that works.'

xx

In the elevator the five Officers are treated to the final dozen bars, with mingling bells providing the underscore, of an enthusiastic 'It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas' filtering in from the overhead speakers. While Mercer suspects many quarters (such as his own) make that song title true, the Holiday being only 3 days distant, the corridors and work areas retain their more utilitarian décor.

By the end of the short drop to Deck 5 the music has changed to 'Quono Maldov Trinor' from Theta Seven. Kelly knows she had not done Dann, properly Lt. Vaolastorcugrkyi, a favor in granting his initial proposal for music in the car before she'd given oversight responsibility to Yaphit, for she'd also directed him to ensure that the selections recognize the very diverse nature of the crew. On the Festival three days hence the selections will shift focus for twenty four hours; and perhaps she'll have mercy on the Adgocehan and ask the new Chaplain to select the music.

x

The elevator deposits the command crew on 5 and it's a short walk to the Shuttle Bay where they meet green and black uniformed Dr. Claire Finn, who'd had a shorter journey.

The large bay doors are already open and, past the atmospheric force shield, they see the approaching shuttle has completed its turn and is aligning to enter. Mercer signals Clearance with a gesture to the elevated Control Booth at the rear and a few seconds later a brief thrust moves the shuttle forward.

When the ship crosses the field the engines seem to suddenly come alive though in reality they are powering down. The small ship settles, the rear wall drops to form a ramp toward the portal and four people carrying gunnysacks file out toward the closing bay doors, immediately column right, halt and right face lined up opposite the officers aligned in Reception. From left to right the first two officers sport uniform jackets of green as does the woman on the right who had led the group, while the third jacket is orange. The four deposit their carry bags at their right sides and come to Attention. Mercer stands a pace forward between the two lines, though behind him his crew are no more at Attention than he is

The newcomers salute smartly in unison, which he returns somewhat more casually.

x

"Welcome aboard the Orville, I'm Captain Edward Mercer," and he introduces his five officers by rank and specialty, consults the data padd in his hand and looks left to address / announce the white haired man in the green / black jacket topped by double barred silver shoulder epaulets and the circular Big Dipper constellation with too close North Star patch in green on the left side of his chest: "Lieutenant William Harnell, our new Astrophysicist."

"Yes, sir."

"You will report to our Science Officer Isaac."

"I look forward to working with you," the Kaylonian mechanoid says, accessing his recently incorporated protocol subroutine, one that had been in much demand in his initial months aboard.

"Thank you, sir."

There are extremely few 'people' from Kaylon-1 in the Planetary Union as a whole, yet Mercer is impressed that Harnell handles the encounter without a blink.

"Your record to date, Doctor," Isaac says, "has occasionally been satisfactory."

x

'O-kay, that program can use more work,' Mercer decides. "Lieutenant Kevin Schaap, our Botanist."

"Sir," the younger man in the green / black jacket acknowledges. His round green and white patch at the left side of his chest displays something that could be considered the Tree of Life or some equally fanciful allusion.

"You'll work with our head of Life Sciences and CMO, Lt. Cmdr. Claire Finn."

"Welcome aboard, doctor."

"Thank you, doctor."

Mercer turns his attention to orange uniformed "Lieutenant George Saunders, our new Engineer. Welcome."

"Thank you, sir."

"You will report to our Chief Engineer Lt. Cmdr. John LaMarr but be directly under Lt. Yaphit, who is presently in Engineering." 'And who doesn't have cogwheels on his chest, if he even has a chest.'

"We're going to have great times keeping this tub afloat," LaMarr assures the younger man in his inimitable style.

"I look forward to it, Lieutenant Commander."

"John. Until you fuck up and blow all the synthesizers before Christmas dinner, then it's Beelzebub."

He grins, hard not to do with the black man's infectious good humor. "Yes, sir. I won't let you down."

"Good. You won't want to find out what it's like to cook by hand for three hundred nineteen people."

"No, sir."

"And," Mercer says with a firm tone to regain control of the conversation, addressing the red haired woman in the green / black uniform, ('_why_ do they still make women's uniforms with the extra black sides curved to emphasize their figures?') "Lieutenant Crystal McGee, our Chaplain. Welcome aboard, Reverend."

"Thank you, sir."

x

Mercer takes a moment to evaluate this new Officer, one distinctly outside the normal Chain of Command, which is why he'd addressed her by title rather than rank. 'Might as well get used to it from the top. Thanks, Kel.'

Lieutenant McGee stands five foot eight, her red hair evoking the word conflagration yet it's styled at regulation length and gathered behind her shoulders. Her eyes are a vibrant green and he decides that Gordon had not been exaggerating, at least by much. Her green and white badge circles a green open book outline, a traditional non-denominational symbol for Chaplains who must, of necessity, deal with vast numbers and varieties of Faith and Tradition.

"Since your duties are Psychological as well as Liturgical," he continues in what he hopes wasn't an appreciable gap, "you come under Dr. Finn's purview."

"Doctor."

"Mother."

x

Finn gave an ironic lilt to her tone in so addressing a woman perhaps half her age. She hasn't checked closely any of the newcomers yet, preferring to meet them before investigating them but she has the sense that Alara, at 24, may have lost her standing as the youngest crew person. "You looking forward to this?"

"Prayerfully."

"All right. Our Chief of Security, Lt. Alara Kitan, will assign you to your quarters and then you gentlemen will be shown to your departments and introduced to your fellows and duties." Their Intake Interviews will be done first by their Department heads, but Finn will be occupied and the final new crew woman will have duties that will lead her into interaction with everyone on the ship, so "Lt. McGee, you're with us."


	2. First Looks

Chapter Two  
First Looks

Ed Mercer allows the two women to enter his office first, then settles in behind his desk, Grayson in the chair to his left and McGee to his right. His newest officer wears the two barred silver shoulder boards over her green and black jacket, and sewn over her left breast is a unique division patch, at least unique for this ship. The green bordered white circle surrounds the green and white outline of an open book, the traditional non-denominational emblem of the Planetary Union Chaplains' Corps.

The redheaded young woman sits stiff, posture precise, back not touching the chair, hands flat upon her knees. Two silver rings decorate her fingers; on her right a band with a crucifix whose arms extend upward and down her slim finger, the one on her left a band with Irish triquetra arranged upright and inverted to form a continuous line. There is nothing in her record on being married, but he recalls that some women dedicated to the Religious life use such a ring to indicate a bonding with God.

She sits motionless, as though any motion might draw danger. He remembers a half dozen interviews with new Commanders and there's not a one he can truly say he'd enjoyed, so he tries to put her at ease.

"So, Lieutenant, why don't you tell us a little about yourself?" He touches a button; a blue holographic record appears in the air above the emitter and the woman's face loses several shades.

'Oh, _brilliant_ move,' he thinks and sees the same words in Kelly's expression. He hadn't thought, realizes that if he'd wanted to consult her Service Record again, he should have called it up earlier. He turns the image off. "Sorry."

"Yes. That's…" she licks dry lips, "okay. Well, I'm 23, born in Aliceville, Iowa. I have two older brothers, a younger sister, majored in Sociology in High School and was going to be a Psychiatrist before I realized what I wanted to do, what I was destined to do."

They've both picked up, hard not to even in that capsule summary, the most flowing and distinct Irish brogue either of them has heard in years and Mercer decides that Gordon Malloy had best tread carefully when he speaks to her in Alara's presence. The Xelayan didn't show any signs of true jealousy at his first evaluation on the bridge, yet her cautioning of Gordon does show that the red uniformed officer is not immune to green eyes – especially should Malloy get caught up in the emerald eyes of their new shipmate.

x

"Destined?" Kelly Grayson asks.

It takes her two tries to meet Grayson's eyes. "I'm not sure, even now, that I can explain what it feels like, to be Called by God for a specific purpose." She apparently searches for similarity. "I think the best way is when you know that a career is what you do, a Calling defines who you are. And when you say 'yes' you discover that that life is the best, truest definition of your life and its purpose."

"Then you didn't always know?"

She takes a very slow breath without moving her body a millimeter, lets it out as slowly, then must gasp for the first breath had taken the time of eight. "I don't think anyone _truly_ knows until that moment when God speaks directly to your soul and tells you that this is His plan for you." Her stare, which had been to Kelly's eyes, slips an inch to her right and she must force a sharp return. "And you always have a choice, but I knew my choice is to accept."

"You make it sound like Recruitment," Kelly says.

"Sorry, I don't mean to," she apologizes quickly, then regroups. "Or maybe I do. Maybe you're right. I _was_ always focused, and in growing up spent tons of time in Church; St. Alphonsus, St. John's, Christ Church, St. Philip's, Ascension, Transfiguration, St. Margaret's; I served in every capacity I could and in a few that I couldn't." And they can read that she has just given her first unrehearsed answer.

"Sounds challenging," Kelly says.

"When lumped together, but not when spread over so many years."

Mercer keeps his smile within; this is a grand old lady of twenty-three, and though she doesn't seem as overwhelmed by nervousness after that rush he can see that it flows below her surface, sometimes like a stream, occasionally like a river.

He has to wonder how she'll handle a river.

In time.

x

"But it was years before I knew that what I was preparing for was going to be my Calling. And when it happened, no one was more surprised than I was."

"In what way?" Kelly asks.

"Well…. That is, I… I knew. I knew I wanted to make this my life, to devote myself to it 24/7/365, I mean to go all the way and become a Priest so I could bring others to know the unbounded depths of Love that I've cherished for so long."

"How did you manage that?" she wants to know. She's not actively trying to break through the rehearsed confidence, but experience has taught her that below that 'placid' and practiced surface is where she can find the truest answers. "I mean, you could be a Priest in a Parish or whatever. Why take on the added job of becoming a Chaplain for what's basically, well, everyone?" Even in that slightly longer than usual blink, Kelly can read lack of confidence. Is this something that gets under the young woman's security and certitude, of has she been trying to avoid addressing it? "We have representatives from fourteen planets aboard and I only know the names of three or four faiths."

"Love. Pure and simple love. I love God wholeheartedly which leads me to the love of His children as my brothers and sisters. It's all a lifelong love affair."

Now that was definitely rehearsed.

x

Mercer noticed that as she got into the conversation her manner had started to ease, even if a lot of what she says is scripted. Nothing wrong with that; he'd prepared and read from a lot of mental scripts in his time, but it's when she's caught off guard that he sees the most.

She'd originally been stiff to the point of rigor and nervous bordering on outright fear, yet she kept steady by answering questions as though listing facts. But as Kelly's questions shift from facts and history to personal things her confidence again falters.

He remembers so well his occasions being on that side of the desk; a lot of his scripts could have benefited from extra polish and far more rehearsal than he'd been willing to devote. Winging it doesn't always work when you fall from the sky.

Still, he lets his First Officer conduct the interview while he sits back and learns.

x

"Is that what led you to become a Priest in the Service?" she asks.

"Yes, I g – Yes."

"And what inspired this in the first place?"

McGee blinks and her eyes widen ever so slightly, telegraphing that she's fallen from the train. She might well think she'd answered that but "Everyone has that one initial spark," the older woman points out. "That one motivation, that one thing that when it happens says 'this is where I want to point my life.' Perhaps it happened even before you knew you wanted to serve God."

x

"Well, I … yes, I – I …." She looks like a dozen answers have collided in her mind before she settles on "Family History."

She doesn't appear to realize that there's more than the esoteric there, that she'd accidently given her new Executive Commander what she needs to probe more deeply.

"Family?"

"Kind – histor… I – well, that is… just…." Her long deep breath has to hurt her lungs, but the exhalation is "Well, my eight times great-grandmother was Bishop of Washington back when it was the capital of the former United States of America and hers was the generation when women began to generally be admitted into the priesthood, at least in many denominations. Not all, but … I mean… yes."

"Really." It was a good thing that that breath had been deep.

x

"Her name was Siobhan nee O'Mallory McGee, from the old sod."

Mercer can appreciate this antique reference, and how she'd used it to distract and to snatch at confidence. He hopes she's found some.

"Her daughter, Mother Erin, who I'm not descended through, my line came through Siobhan and Timothy's son Craig, when in her mid-50's she founded Trinity Seminary in Ulster, Ireland. Erin, not Siobhan that was, not long after the Re-unification."

"I've heard of that," Kelly says.

For a moment McGee looks thrown again. The Irish Unification? Or…?

"Yes. Well…. It was the first Seminary to offer – 162 years after its foundation in the latter half of the 21st century of course – education in Extra-Terrestrial Theology."

x

"You attended Trinity, I see," Mercer remembers that from the holofile he'd read this morning.

"Yes, sir. Their Comparative Religions Department is the best in the world, and family history and pride made me have to try." She looks down for a sheepish moment and her reestablishment when she could talk about the School and not herself is short lived with the admission that "The pride got knocked out of me pretty darn quickly."

"How so?" he asks. The woman doesn't seem to suffer from an overabundance of pride. Right at this moment it seems very much the reverse.

"My Novice Master was – is – a Jesuit and some of the Profs could be rougher, more demanding of progress. Since I'm a McGee, of the direct line McGees going back to Timothy and Siobhan, through Craig not Erin, and wanted to try my hand at Inter-species Faiths, they made sure that if I could survive them, I'd be ready."

"And are you ready?" he asks.

"Y – y-." Her gaze falls away from his, she forces it up again but to the silver Union Central icon behind him. Then out the window to her right, then to the desktop, then to Kermit the frog, then to…. "No, sir," is a whisper that has to be pressed out, but then she locks her eyes on his. "But I'm determined to try."

x

Mercer appreciates the honesty and the resolve. He rarely meets new officers who proclaim themselves 'ready' who are. But calculating that someone fresh out of College would spend four years earning, say, a Master of Divinity Degree…. "How long have you been in the Service?"

"Almost eight months."

"Eight _months_?" Kelly isn't sure if she should be disbelieving or… whatever. "You're a Union Lieutenant within eight months?"

"All members of the Chaplains Corps are initially appointed as Lieutenants. It's considered a medium designation, neither high nor low."

This "Why?" from Kelly is intentionally sharp. Can the woman regain her flow under tension? In the coming months or years she will have to.

"Well… well, ma'am, a… a lot of … well, Officers… well, they find it hard to be counseled or ministered to by a crew person or even an Ensign." She loses the eye contact, her gaze falls to her clasped hands on her lap and she must force it up again "And if I – if _we_ have to enforce what a person _should_ be doing, lead them from sin as it were - we need some weight."

"Weight." Is she being unfair? No, a Lieutenant rank is a demanding one, implying proof of ability in addition to authority. More than a year ago a Lieutenant had come aboard fast-tracked via decisions more Official and Procedural than earned by experience, and yet she had lived up to and had grown into the job.

But can lightning strike twice on the same ship?

"I was already a priest with an MIT, a Master of Inter-species Theology Degree, before applying to the Corps. The Academy was more to familiarize me with how the Planetary Union functions and my place in it."

Grayson looks to Mercer. "And Alara thought she was Fast Tracked."

x

"The Union," Mercer says, "specifically now aboard a starship, and your priestly duties, I expect is a difficult balance. What I mean is can you minister to not only humans of different Faiths and traditions but half a score of non-human races?"

"Well…." Again her gaze falls to her clenched hands, she forces it up again. "Unlike a parochial Priest who focuses on a specific Faith congregation, a Priest who serves as a Chaplain ministers to his or her own, facilitates the worship of others and cares for all."

Now that had sounded like she was reading from the Corps prospectus.

"We do not proselytize but –."

"Must be hard not to proselytize," he cuts in, deciding it's time to join Kelly in upping the pressure. "You've lived your whole life by one viewpoint, it's right to you. It would be tempting to bring someone across."

"We're not _allowed_ to. We have to meet everyone as we find them."

Sounds like a good rule, but can she live up to it?

x

"That sounds like it could be hard enough in itself." He doesn't know the religions of even half of his crew, having considered that their private businesses, but this woman is going to have to both become familiar with and openly support them in it. "I imagine if you could get them believing all the same you could be quite…."

He doesn't need to continue; she looks like he's leaned across the desk and given her a full handed slap.

x

"Captain…" she fights the words out, "may I have permission to speak openly? Freely?"

"Lieutenant, I don't want you to speak to me in any other way."

"Then, sir, I must begin by telling you that proselytizing is absolutely _forbidden_ of Chaplains, to the extent of being Grounds for Dismissal." There's more fire in that answer than she'd shown in the entire interview. "I just said we do not proselytize; I am to take each person as I find him or her and minister to the best of which I am capable.

"Is it harder than keeping within my religion? Of course. I'm very comfortable as a Christian among Christians, Episcopalians even more so, but God doesn't Call us to be comfortable, He Calls us to _serve_ Him and His children – and that includes the Krill."

x

"The Krill?" He had baited her in an effort to see under her exterior and her preparations for this interview, but he ranges encounters with the Krill somewhere between extremely hazardous and deadly, always done without one's choice. To do so willingly would be foolhardy, while to seek it out must fall under suicidal. Any who would do so voluntarily he must question the stability of. "I think you may be biting off more than you can chew."

"I certainly don't want to meet any of them on a sunlit football field - let alone a dark alley - but like Jonah I've learned that when God tells you to go somewhere, you go."

"_Has_ God Called you to minister to the Krill?" The Tesla had better not be too far away yet.

All the recovered assurance, all the fire used in answering what must have been a sharp insult for her to come back to him as she had, vanishes from the woman. "I – I –." She seeks the answer in Kelly's eyes, then in his before she must admit in a whisper "I don't know. I _hope_ not."

x

He can virtually read her mind, spread as it is across her countenance: 'Why did I ever mention the Krill?'

"Well, I hope that day won't come." He'll hate to tell her about the 'sacrifice' he saw at the Krill worship service during his and Gordon's undercover mission, but he's sure she'll hear. "But what do you know about them?" Up to a few months ago, no one knew anything.

"Well…. " This time he can actually watch her rally. "I'm really proud to say that I'm part of the first class of Academy Chaplains' Corps students to read unclassified excerpts from the Anhkana, a book I understand you're familiar with."

He fights a withdrawal. 'This woman, when she gets her space legs, could be a Mistress of Understatement. That day still gives me nightmares.' "Yes, you could say I had a hand in bringing it to light. I didn't know they released any of it outside Secure facilities."

He and Gordon had gone in and had begun getting a series of holophotoes of the tome in the Cruiser Yakar's Chapel, then captured the book itself along with the ship, which Union scientists will spend the next decade or more plumbing the mysteries of.

"Only the briefest and most carefully selected excerpts, and then because ships we'll serve might encounter the Krill. I would love to get my hands on as many as three consecutive pages."

x

"What did you think of it?"

"Disturbing." She doesn't quite shudder, but he can watch her gather what she needs for the next rally that lets her say "An old boyfriend once described me as 'a soulless bitch', but I'd never thought a whole culture would back him."

Full of surprises, this one. "Maybe you could explain that to me."

She smiles. "The book, the boyfriend or being a soulless bitch?"

He fights an answering smile; has the feeling he's going to be doing a lot of that in the future. "The book. I didn't get even a moment to know what was in it, what with having to duck their High Priest and the guard and the whole running for our lives thing. The boyfriend is none of my business and the soulless I'm really inclined to doubt."

She smiles more readily. "And the bitch?"

"We'll see about that. You have a long way to go before you can reach our First Officer," gets him a grin from McGee and a 'what, wait a minute' look from Kelly.

x

Crystal takes a long, deep breath, digging her fingernails into her clenched palms upon her lap.

"Can I hear of your and Lieutenant Malloy's experiences and perceptions on the Anhkana and the Krill culture, particularly the role of the High Priest as a power on the ship? The Unclassified ones, of course," she rushes to finish.

"Already plotting to take over?"

"Oh _no_ sir." She exchanges a glance with Kelly, the change of the tone of the meeting telling her she might be able to relax. She'll take a chance and test it. She hopes no one noticed the long intake of air and the forced relaxation of her shoulders, though her hands really hurt and she wishes this interview would be over so she can wash the blood off her palms. "Not yet, anyway," she assures him in that same fake ('is it over the top?') tone.

He looks from one woman to the next. "I'm starting to realize that with a female XO, CMO, CSO and now Chaplain I'd better watch my back."

"You could spend more time hanging around Bortus," Kelly assures him. "Or Yaphit."

He thinks this over. "No thanks, Bortus and Yaphit together are a heady mixture. You'll see what I mean," he tells her.

"I look forward to it." 'One more 'heady mixture' today and I'm gonna faint.'

"In the meantime, I'll see what I can do about excerpts of the Anhkana, but you're already one up on me. Plus, I'm sure Gordon, once you get him started, could talk your ears off."

"Good luck following him, though," Grayson quips.

"No worries there, Commander." 'Who is Gordon? Why follow? What do I say now? Follow? Oh.' "We had a demanding language curriculum; I studied Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and tried Earth Political Science. Aramaic was easier."

x

'Let's hear it for inspired non sequiturs,' he thinks. A confirming glance from Grayson cements his decision. He extends his hand across the desk. "Welcome aboard the Orville, Lieutenant."

x

She checks her hand. No blood, just four very deep indentations. 'Yeah, bleed on my Captain. Right. Great way to make a first impression.'

She's late in reaching out and taking his hand, then rushes and can't think how she's going to cover for this gaff, but when she clasps hands with him, he seems not to notice the delay.

'Or can he feel that I'm shaking so hard that if I put my hand on the bulkhead, I'll vibrate all the rivets loose?'

x

As Kelly also shakes her new crewmate's hand, she asks a question she normally would not: "Do you prefer Lieutenant or Mother?"

She hesitates over the choice, and Mercer can read 'what if I ask for too much?' "M - Mother, I think. Anyone who looks at me will see the rank, but my Calling is to establish a closer bond with the crew.

"But please, off duty please make it Crystal."


	3. Open File

Chapter Three  
Open File

Lieutenant Crystal McGee stands two steps into her three-room quarters, already in her mind 'Bedroom', 'Living Room / Office' and 'Personal'. She has said goodbye to Lt. Kitan, who has assured her that she will see her later, expressing thoughts that she is also new to the Service and is available for any help in settling into her new life.

She slowly inscribes the Sign of the Cross to forehead, full reach down, touch to left and right shoulders and flat over her heart and thinks a prayer of Establishment, drops her duffle bag beside her feet, takes a lung bursting breath, very slowly lets it free and tries to relax her body.

Again.

Again.

Twenty seconds later she gives up.

"Father, _please_ _Help_."

x

The room is huge, bigger than any two of her rooms back home and huge, way more huge than her chamber at the Seminary. Starting from left wall (all the walls are faux wood) there's a large silver statue that suggests an Infinity symbol, two couches linked at one side surrounding two tables and a floor set potted plant that looks like a rubber tree. They call focus toward the widest wide screen monitor she's seen in years. This is enough to watch movies with at least one other friend or even set up a 'Quarters Theater'.

Along the opposite wall three tremendous windows show the stars shooting from right to left with their rainbow doppler effects. 'Right to left, I'm on the Port side, good to know when I get lost and have to ask someone where I live.'

In front of the right window is a desk with three decorative bottles (empty) on the left corner, a computer interface and a desk lamp. Opposite that, also on her right, is a round table set with four chairs. 'Okay, that will be fine for Counseling as well as entertaining at least 7 guests, 8 with the desk chair. But trying to use the desk for writing or anything else I'll be too mesmerized by the stars and God knows what else.'

The entrance to the bedroom is in the far right corner beside the desk, and she's been assured that the refresher is on the other side of her bed.

Last, but certainly not least, is a huge synthesizer nitch big enough for her to throw a banquet. 'Okay, nonsense, you do things one at a time but that's still a whopping big thing.'

She crosses the room to the desk set before the third window, reaches into the right pocket of her green uniform jacket, and pulls out a blue data chip barely as large as her thumbnail. There's a Reader set into the top right of the desk and, still unable to relax enough to sit down, she forces herself to ignore the right to left rainbow lights for they could hypnotize if she lets them and reaches to that far right corner, places the chip into the tiny slot and touches a button on the control panel.

x

"Computer, record for voice print." She straightens, takes and holds a deep calming and steadying breath that does neither.

Maybe the interstellar vista isn't such a bad idea.

"This is the Reverend and Lieutenant Crystal McGee, Planetary Union ID eight two blue five three seven Antares nine one six Minerva four eight two."

**Voice print matches Union records transmitted this date.** the device tells her in a most natural female voice.

'Of course.' She'd thought she'd had to go through the whole set-up. "Read data chip in slot. Append to existing file." With the answering beep she knows she can put this off no longer.

She closes her eyes and tries to breathe herself into ease. Five slow in-out breaths, six, seven… eight.

Nine.

'Oh, Father, _please_ help me.'

'We are not given the spirit of fear,' she thinks / remembers, 'but of daughter-ship.'

When it is but moderately successful, she tries another.

'Fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.'

And another try.

'Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people...'

x

Keeping her eyes closed, she says "Chaplain's Log, December 22, 2420." Her mouth is so dry. 'Why didn't I get some water first?' "I'm aboard the USS Orville, I met Captain … Captain – _the_ Captain, First Officer and Security Chief." Another deep breath, another failure. "They're nice and I'm scareder – _more_ scared than I've been since …. _Ever_."

x

She pulls out the apparently comfortable chair, removes her green and black jacket with barely bending arms, drapes it from the back of the chair and tries to fight her way into the seat. Her body won't go down. She wishes that she had someone behind her to kick her knees because it takes so long to fight her way into the chair, and even when in it she can't break the stiffness.

"Note to self: Thank uncle Tim for all those Acting lessons. Without them I just know I wouldn't have made it through the Intake interview with Captain Mercer and Commander Grayson without crying.

"Some horrible impression _that_ would have made."

She fights to take another slow breath, hold it, let it out very slowly. It takes nothing with it.

"I sat in his office, opposite the Captain, with the First Officer next to me, and I could not _think_. I Acted, pretended to be the nice, sociable woman I see and hear in my head and every second I'm so scared I – I don't know what. I'd even wanted to comment on this uniform, how green is the most common Liturgical color, that of Ordinary Time, but I knew it would sound so _stupid_. I was even going to say something inspired about Time and this ship's history, just to show I was up on _something_, but not even that would come out.

"I _faked_ every second, pretended to be me, that woman I see in my head and they had to have caught on that I was acting and they forgave me.

"I couldn't even faint."

x

She pushes away from the desk on the chair's wheels, but as an escape it's not much and then less.

"I prayed. Oh God Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit did I pray. I prayed like I haven't since that man–!

"_NO_! No more of that!" She flings the images away with her arms, prays they will go away – stay away. "I'm _over_ that. No more _memories_." Fists clenched upon the white desk before the rushing star stuff, she fights down the feelings, that particular fear she exchanges for this one, fights to think, to locate her composure. She rolls herself forward to the desk and forces her palms flat upon the white top. "Computer, delete those last seven sentences."

**Final seven sentences deleted.** the invisible woman says.

"Where was I?"

/I couldn't even faint,/ her own voice says.

"No. Computer, delete that one too."

**Deleted.**

She falls forward, elbows on the desk, her head crashing into her raised hands. "Oh God. Jesus. _Computer, delete the whole darn thing!_"

**December 22 Log entry deleted.**

x

She sits for many breaths; head resting heavily in her supporting hands and struggles to put her prayers into thoughts. 'Pray without ceasing', Saint Francis said. 'If necessary, use words.'

'Well, I can't even think of any words.'

"Computer." Her voice sounds wrong in the valley of her forearms so she forces herself to look up, forces a voice she also owes thanks to her uncle Tim for.

"What am I _doing_ here?" is a whisper that shakes in the middle and she fights back, fights the tears that threaten to break through. "I _know_ what I'm doing here," is equally quiet. She can barely hear herself as she tries to keep the computer from hearing and recording her. "Study, pass, graduate, be Ordained and then when I heard the Union had Openings for Chaplains, I nearly broke a nail hitting the button before I could talk myself out of it. And then, after I'm in for five months I hear they're expanding the number and classes of ships to Serve and I, like an idiot, jump on that and as a result I get assigned to the ship with the Officer who started the kilbloxing thing!" She throws her head up. "Computer, delete that!"

**There is no record to delete.**

"Oh. Yeah. Okay. Then Record." She takes another not steadying breath. "Chaplain's Log, December 22, 2420. I'm aboard the Orville, it's three days, no, two days before Christmas Eve, we're well into the fourth week of Advent, I'm about to celebrate my very _First_ Christmas as an Ordained Priest - on a ship - as Chaplain. I've been too excited and scared and I don't know what to organize - even one thought - how do you organize a subset of one? - Professor Lane would whack me in the back of my head but in all this preparing I'm not ready," she looks over her shoulder to the closed quarters door, "and I have to meet my congregation."

x

She gets off the chair, down to her knees and thinks, before starting her prayers, how nice it would be to stay here and never get up again. But in time that unrealistic ambition must give way to duty. Duty is easier. Duty gets her off her knees and makes her start to translate prayer into action.

_Darn _duty.

xx

Cold water splashed onto her face, vigorous drying plus using the blower on the forward three inches of her red hair, deep and not so calming breaths, brush into order, then back past the too wide and too inviting bed with the duffle bag tossed upon it to the living room and a half dozen more non-calming breaths. She puts on her green and black jacket, zips it up while finishing the prayers she'd begun before her ablutions and she's not ready to face this ship but deliberately walks toward the door.

'I can walk out or I can chicken out, and I worked too hard to get here.'

The door parts to a blue mountain, she tilts her head back and her shriek gets caught in her instantly clenched throat.

x

"Is anything wrong, Lieutenant?" the mountain rumbles in a voice so deep it vibrates her chest too. His face, tilted down to her, resembles living rock and is as dark and craggy, three tall peaks extending from forehead back, together with horizontal ridges that distinguish the horrific face - but on his shoulders are silver epaulets, two wide bands on each positioned on either side of a thinner one.

"No." 'Act!' She swallows hard, hopes that word wasn't the bleat of terror it had sounded like. 'Act. What lesson? _What_ _lesson_?' "Yes. No, I mean everything - everything's fin, Lieutenant Commander. I mean _fine_. Fine. You just startled me. Merry Christmas."

"What is Christmas?"

'Oh, this is going to be such fun. Wait! Lieutenant Commander?' She snaps to Attention and salutes, prays she didn't do it as badly as it felt.

"At ease, Lieutenant." When she lowers her hand "I am Bortus."

'You're not what I pictured. At _all_.' "Captain … Mercer. Yes, Captain Mercer mentioned you. Now I have a face to go along with the na–" 'Oh God, can I be any more stupid and not need to be put down?' "You're a Moclan, aren - aren't you?" 'Yeah, right, shoot me now - _please_.'

"That is correct." A shorter rumble of avalanching rocks.

Quick breath. Two. Fall back on Training. "May I help you, Lieutenant Commander?"

"No." Shortest rumble so far.

'What do I say now?'

"I have concluded my duty shift and wished to meet the new crew before returning to my mate and son."

"Oh, you have a son?" Her eyes had gone wide with pleasure, she shuts them tight. 'Blithering _idiot_, he just told you that.' She forces herself to look and hopes the silence wasn't the ten minutes it'd felt like. "I'd love to meet him." 'Was that a skooch too much enthusiasm?'

"That can be arranged."

'Okay, yes but not now. Okay.' "What's his name?"

"His name is Topa."

"Oh, that's a nice name."

"Yes."

'Oh, we are going to have such nice long conversations together.'

x

"Have I interrupted you, Lieutenant? You were on your way out."

"Yes. I mean no. I mean - I don't –" She casts right and left, up and down as much of the gently curving corridor as she can see from the threshold and finally has to admit "that is, I don't know where I was going."

"Perhaps, as you are new here, you were on your way to Report to your superior officer."

"Yes. Yes, that was it. My superior officer… is…."

"Doctor Claire Finn."

"Right. I knew that." 'I've known it for a freeping _month_.'

When she'd looked up the main officers, she'd noticed that two of them are Irish but that's _really_ irrelevant.

She looks right, left, right again.

"Perhaps if I escort you."

She looks up to that stone face which hasn't moved much at all during this conversation. She could wish for someone a bit more flowing. Wait, isn't there already someone who does that? George Saunders, one of her three new friends from the Tesla and the shuttle, had mentioned a Yaphit. The Captain mentioned him too, in the same breath with Bortus, that they were a heady mixture. Oh, this is Bortus. Are they together? Moclans are single gender and Yaphit, she understands, is male and Bortus mentioned his mate but didn't specify –

"Lieutenant McGee?"

"Yes? Oh, God, I'm _sorry_, I was…."

"Do you wish an escort?"

'KISS. That's my new motto; keep it short and sweet.' "Yes."

"This way," he indicates with a look to her right.

The door hisses shut when she leaves it.

x

For a long time since being assigned to this duty she had pictured shifting to avoid crewmen moving in the opposite direction or else occasional collisions, but even with a third or more of the crew asleep at any particular hour the crew is sparser than she'd imagined.

But she'd looked it up aboard the Tesla and learned that the number of people on the ship was balanced to an optimum level of breathers to bulkhead area.

The Union Fleet, she had long heard, has incredible ships but aside from being on the Tesla she'd never left the Sol System and she wishes she had the ability to enjoy this vessel. She's especially intrigued by having learned on the Tesla and now here something fascinating, that the walls - bulkheads - are a quasi-plant material that takes in carbon monoxide, or is it dioxide?, from the air and excretes oxygen, but the necessary meeting of the ship's doctor, though technically she already met her, distracts from the man (?) beside her and, unfortunately, even from her prayers. Ever since coming aboard her mind has been so haphazardly unfocused that even her devotions suffer and so she misses Bortus' halt at a door on her right that she should have perceived from the Caduceus painted on the outside wall.

x

Entering (leave taking from Commander Bortus was a brief thing), she discovers not just a technically advanced medical bay but a red jacketed crewman lying on a diagnostic table a few feet into the room.

'_Finally_ something I know how to do.' Stepping up beside the black man, she waits until he's seen her. "Hello."

"Hello, doc–" He's seen her badge. Green is Sciences but "Not a doctor."

"No, I'm the ship's Chaplain." It's the first time she's said the words aloud to anyone and… they feel good.

"I didn't realize I was that far gone."

"No. That is I don't know, I …." 'May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable to you O Lord my Strength and my Redeemer.' "I thought you'd like to talk."

"About what?"

"Well, how about what happened?"

"Don't know." He puts his hand to his stomach. "I woke up for my shift and felt so queasy I couldn't get off the bed. Finally, I had to call for help."

"That must have been pretty scary."

"Didn't have time to be scared. I was too busy hurting."

"Ah."

"So, what's your name?"

x

She blinks, taken aback by the sudden shift in his tone and gaze, though now she doesn't have to flounder. She's had 'the Suave' used on her a few thousand times since puberty. "Lieutenant McGee."

"You sound Irish. Christian?"

"As a Chaplain my duty is to help, aid and assist everyone but yes, to answer your question, yes, I'm an Episcopalian."

"Now how did someone as lovely as you wind up turning her life over to Jesus Christ?"

"You mean as an Episcopal Priest?"

"Yeah."

"Simple. Back when I received the Call, Rabbinical School was full."

He laughs but immediately clutches his stomach.

"Now let that be a lesson to you," a woman's voice behind her says. "Overindulging in oysters will do that to you." Crystal had whirled at 'let' but the green jacketed black woman isn't done with the man on the table. "And contrary to centuries old myth, they are _not_ an aphrodisiac."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now you lie there and reconsider your life choices, and I'll be with you shortly."

x

When her boss turns her attention to her Crystal slams to Attention and comes to a textbook perfect salute. At least she hopes it was textbook; she'd practiced so many times in front of so many mirrors. "Lieutenant Crystal McGee, Ship's Chaplain reporting!"

"Hi, Crystal," Claire Finn says from the opposite end of the formality scale. "Come down from that before you sprain something and wind up on a table beside this fool."

"Ma'am?" she lowers her hand.

"You'll find we're not all spit and polish here."

"Yes, ma'am. I mean Lieutenant Com–"

"Call me Claire. We have one Captain, one Commander, a half dozen LCs and by the time you reach the Lieutenant level I think we have too many."

"Yes, ma'am. I mean Cla –" She shakes her head fast. Nothing rattles. Yet. "I'm Crystal."

"Crystal," the man behind her says with deep appreciation, the suave opened to deluge intensity.

Claire fixes him with a glare. "You mind yourself or I may decide the cure for what ails you is an enema."

He doesn't risk an answer.

x

"Come with me," Finn says, leading the way across the bay to her office. "We'll get you fixed up," she concludes as they enter the smaller room and the glass door slides shut behind them. "Have you found your office satisfactory?" she asks, going to the desk backed by the wall, the bulk of the medical bay visible through the glass at her right.

The tone makes her realize Finn doesn't mean her quarters so for a second she can pretend she's quick on at least one uptake. Who knows, maybe one will lead to more? She forces herself to sit down opposite the older woman. She'd have preferred the white couch to her left had it been offered, for she'd be more comfortable and her back would be to the Sick Bay, but she concentrates on forcing the stiffness from her posture.

"I haven't even seen it." She will _not_ admit she'd thought she was going to have to use her 'living room'.

"It's six doors down on your right from your quarters."

'Oh, I passed it with Bortus.'

"But let's get acquainted and we can go over your duties and some insights into your new Charges."

x

She can't mask her expression in time and the woman catches her at it. Finn sits a few inches forward. "You're scared."

"Out of my freeping _Mind_!" leaps from her mouth before she can stop it, but after a horror of embarrassment and the panting of breath and the moist rims of her eyes that came with the rush she decides she's glad it did. Maybe this woman will be someone she can talk to?

"Why? Did someone threaten you?"

She pushes the moisture away with her fingertips, ashamed, yet glad she hadn't indulged in any make-up and re-ashamed at the irrelevant, errant thought. "No, of course not. Who would?" 'That's right', she realizes. 'Who would?'

"Well, is someone going to hurt you?"

"No."

"Then are you afraid you don't belong here?"

"_Yes_!"

"Why?"

"What if I mess up?"

"Then you mess up. And you move on. There is not one man, woman or other who hasn't in the year plus that we've been out."

"But what if I'm really needed, some crucial thing someone needs me for and I don't –" Claire had raised her hand to halt the deluge.

"Look, I don't know the future. We did have someone here once that did and that was a disaster of epic proportions–"

"What happened?" is out of her mouth before she can bite the rude interruption back.

"We all died." She feels her face fall, her eyes wide. "But the Captain turned out to be smarter than she was and he un-died us."

She's too flummoxed to interrupt, and she belatedly remembers from one of the crew of the Tesla the tale of Pria Levesque.

"None of us can know for certain what's going to happen. In twenty years, you could be Bishop of the Chaplains' Corps. My point is that you take every day as it happens to you, meet it head on and lick it or you give in to your fears, turn in on yourself and start to wither away."

Something… some… is that… that's almost familiar. "Is that from an audio video entertainment?"

"Mmm, kind of."

x

A passage from the Valedictorian Address from her Graduating Class at Trinity comes back. 'We will make mistakes,' the man had assured his soon-to-be-former classmates. 'We shall have glorious victories interspersed with grievous failures. Let us admit that to ourselves. But let us always remember that we will never work alone; that God, by whatever Name we call Him, is but a thought away and will stand with us in our Challenges'.

That was how Seamus O'Cathain had expressed it, but she only completely appreciates those words since coming aboard this ship.

"I'm still scared. This is nothing like I pictured it."

"It never is."

"I'm afraid of so much, especially of letting people who come to me with questions who think I have all the answers know how much I _don't._"

"I'm not."

"I – excuse me?"

"I'm not. I don't expect you to have answers to every, or even most, questions. I don't have the answer at least once a day and I've long ago admitted to myself that that's never going to change. And when you get to be my age, you'll look back on the hundred thousand times when you didn't have all the answers. If not, I'd think you belong on a table next to that fool." She glances to her right at the sick bay and it gives Crystal a moment to catch up.

x

"I'm supposed to be the one people can come to."

"And in time you will be. Until then, I hope you will feel comfortable coming to me. Think of me as your Obi-Wan."

"I'll try."

"Good. You know, the last one I made a similar offer to had no idea what I'd said."

"In the Seminary we're taught over and again that only God has all the answers."

"There, you see?"

She doesn't. Again. "But God doesn't ever mess up."

"That means you can do something He can't."

She doesn't know whether to be shocked by impiety, taken with the woman's psychological skills which are far in advance of her own pathetic neophyte plodding or uncertain if she's met her major foil in the age-old contest between science and faith.

She suspects, however, that she's going to like her new boss.

xxx

"Captain," Alara Kitan calls from her port side fore Communications / Security station, "we're receiving a Signal from Catonis II."

"On screen."

The 140-degree panoramic image of stars is interrupted by a square from deck to overhead showing a room, a black desktop and a white haired woman.

"I am Agriculture Primus Zaltrun calling Captain Mercer of the USS Orville."

"This is Ed Mercer. Go ahead, Primus."

"Captain, I understand you are transporting emergency supplies of seed and equipment."

"We're carrying 700 crates of various seeds per arrangement with your Primine Council, but no one said anything to me about an emergency."

"That is because when those arrangements were made last month there was no emergency. At the time, those supplies were a useful addition, but our colony has suffered a cataclysmic disaster in the form of a Class 7 hurricane. We are too new to have a truly reliable weather grid, so by the time we realized the severity of the storm it was too late. It came in off the ocean, paused over us and produced damage on a scale we were not prepared for."

"Do you require evacuation?" 'How many ships are we talking about?'

"They think not. Damage to homes and facilities was minimal; we are constructed well enough to survive that, but our crops are devastated. We're nearing the final weeks of the growing cycle in this hemisphere and most of what we had is scattered over hundreds of kilometers."

"Primus, we're carrying _seeds_, equipment, tools..."

x

"We've already been in touch with a Dr. Aronov of the Epsilon II Research facility. He confirms that he and his team have developed a system that can accelerate growth. He says he could help us."

"I dare say he can." He'd seen the Quantum Accelerator in operation a year ago, had seen it grow a century-old redwood in seconds, age fruit in as short a time – and turn a young woman into a century -old corpse as quickly. "But you need the seeds."

"As quickly as humanly possible."

"No problem. Ensign Sportelli?"

The young redhead glances back, her answer already researched. "At our present speed we are on schedule to make planetfall in two days, thirteen hours, forty two minutes."

"Gordon, notch it up to full."

"Notching it up." The stars that had been approaching at a rapid pace on either side of the square image leap at them.

"Our new ETA is 1320 hours tomorrow," Sportelli relates.

Mercer looks to the screen. "Primus, we'll see you tomorrow."

"On behalf of all of us, thank you." The image vanishes, letting the stars rush in.

"Alara, contact Union Central, let them know the change of plan and new ETA." He hits the intercom control on the arm of his chair. "Engineering." The computer will route the connection so the response he hears is John LaMarr's.

"Yes, Captain." He had to have known the jump to maximum speed. "We're running at one hundred percent."

"_Two_ hundred."

"I'll get a team out there to push."

A/N: It's an interesting experience to throw in an excerpt from my own Valedictorian Address, something of a blurring of the line between Fiction and Reality.


	4. Burdens of Surprise

Chapter Four  
Burdens of Surprise

The same immense distances that had contributed to the awesome beauty of the nebulae that recently inspired Captain Mercer's appreciation of the wonders of the universe, both celestial and human, now work against the mighty starship as it rushes at maximum speed to answer an emergency appeal for aid. Space is so vast that it can take hours - days - for someone to arrive at the scene of a cataclysm, thereby assuring that, if the calamity is in space, when they do arrive they'll be in time to scan debris and scoop up bodies.

That is the first and hardest lesson those in the Union Space Service have to learn, that the old adage 'you can't save everyone' is in reality more like 'in an emergency it's amazing if you can save anyone'.

But fortunately, this time it is not a space disaster, it's a supply run with a new ETA of 1320 hours tomorrow afternoon. Their shipment of seeds, together with the assistance of Dr. Aronov and his Quantum Accelerator, will resolve what at this point will not arise above the level of a minor problem.

A half hour after his first conversation with his Chief Engineer, and mainly for something to do, Mercer brings his fist down upon the communications button on the right arm of his chair. "Engine Room. John."

The computer routes his call to the proper spot, backs up and replays it with what he's been assured is less than a half second lag time. Some day he's going to test it.

"Engine Room," LaMarr's voice comes back with suitable alacrity.

"System check. How are the engines?"

"Purring like greyhounds."

For a moment the answer halts him, but in the respectful assurance he hears 'If there were a problem, I would tell you'.

He closes the circuit.

xx

Crystal McGee, in her undirected exploration of the ship (simulations and schematics and the fact that starships are generally similar throughout the fleet can only do so much) has already visited her office six doors to the right from her quarters and found it a miniature of those quarters; the faux wood walls, the single big window, the single couch on the left in front of the screen mounted on the left wall, the synthesizer nitch opposite it to her right. 'But if this is a single quarters, what've I got? One more thing to ask about.' Two very comfortable chairs, virtually mini-couches, are on opposite sides of the round table before the synthesizer; appropriate because she virtually never counsels more than one person, and if she must she can pull the chair from the desk beside which corner does not lead to a bedroom but directly to the Personal.

Everything is immaculate other than the floor standing potted plants, one green with huge leaves, another with yellow leaves surrounding short bright red stamens and a third that's doing its darnedest to be a Palm tree if it hadn't been interrupted and pressed into service here, three plants to tend to that command each of the three corners. Last but definitely least is the computer terminal on the center of the desk before the window, a twin to the one in her quarters, which presses home that these are for more than _trying_ to record her diary – logs – on, are all that recommend the room.

x

Having left that Spartan office, she approaches what she expects will be Engineering. She's hesitant about the possibility of intruding, but her Clearance is, or so she's been assured, high enough to allow her access.

She'll find out when she gets in and someone immediately throws her out.

Then again, her friend George – Lt. George Saunders from the Tesla trip – should be inside, so maybe she won't be thrown too hard.

She stops outside the door, takes a deep calming breath which, after holding it for long seconds, doesn't work any more than any of her other tries had. She Crosses herself - prayer always does work even if focused breathing doesn't - and steps forward. The door slides open and she tries to act as though she's allowed to be inside.

Her extra friendly "Hello, everyone" is met with a broken, muttered chorus from people unused to the enthusiasm of her greeting, let alone the sight of this stranger in their sanctum strolling in as though she's on a tour. She grants this is justified because she did just walk into their sanctum and she is on a tour.

She continues for several steps, begins to take in the impressive split-level room filled with a long freestanding bank of controls to her right while to her left, on an upper level, the immense engines pulsate with power that vibrates the deck plates, when she feels like she's walking through a bog.

x

"Hey, buy a guy a drink first," comes a male voice from straight down. She looks down to it and finds herself standing inside a huge yellowish blob of … blob, and its eyes swivel to look up at her.

Terror doesn't begin to cover what she feels. Her shriek bounces and reverberates off the walls as she backpedals with high steps out of the – _What The Hell Is This_?

Everyone in the room is staring at her, several of them probably jumped when she'd screeched like a three year old but _What The Hell_ _Is The Blob_ that's reforming out of her footsteps and turning _Eyes_ up on her?

"_Youza_!" it says out of a mouth that simply appears from – what? She's too scared to do more than pant high pitched, shattered breaths. Those eyes extend on a stalk out of the main blob to come hip high to her but they're on extended stalks so they're looking at her from crotch high and the mouth in the main body's saying "Honey, you can walk through me any time."

"I nee ah I nee ah gig hee hinii-neen!"

The stalks lengthen so the eyes come up higher. 'It's Looking At My BREAST!'

"An open book." The eyes lower down the unshortened stalks, rise up to the top again. "Honey, I'd love for you to be an open book to–"

Her shriek must be higher than the other was but she's running for the door and thank God it opens far enough for her to squeeze out, banging her left knee on the door and right hip on the frame as she leaps out into the corridor.

x

Back inside behind the re-closed door Lieutenant George Saunders confronts the gelatinous entity that sets low to the floor. He's only recently met the creature, knows the woman who'd run out not that much longer, the trip from Earth, but is so outraged that for the moment he'll let discipline go to wherever the creature had sent decorum.

"What's the matter with you? Is that the way you treat a fellow officer?"

"Hey, guy, I was just –."

He doesn't care what the being was doing, nominal superior though it may be. He turns and stalks out of the department, the door adequately fast to accommodate him.

The woman is forty feet up the corridor, her back to him, she's virtually collapsed against the right bulkhead and even from here he can see her trembling, hear her shattered breath.

x

Crystal can't walk, can't breathe; she's shaking so hard that if she pushed off the wall she'd fall. Her breath shudders as badly as the rest of her, her hands at her lips tremble so hard –

"Crystal?" is a soft voice and she jumps half out of her skin with a high bleat.

George Saunders steps around her, seems to appear before her and she wants to say something but her destroyed breath forbids her. She feels as though if she shook harder she could vibrate out of her uniform.

He reaches out, but she can't back away or raise her hands in defense so he puts his arms around her and she can't move nor stop quivering. He gathers her more deeply into an embrace she can't feel but to wonder if he can survive the quaking.

"It's okay," she hears him say into her ear but she can only tighten into a smaller version core, cowering into his body. He's so still but

"N-n-n-n-n-no!" All she can force is a whisper. "I-i-i-it's n_nn_nn_nn_not!"

But as he continues to hold her, gradually - too gradually - the quivering slows. It must be a minute when it fades to half, enough for her to be able to look up into the blue eyes that seem, that are, so calm. Hers feel so wide they hurt. "What..." she can still only whisper, "_was_ that … _thing_?"

"That's Lt. Yaphit. Assistant Chief Engineer."

x

'Yaphit' squeezes into her fragmented mind, pushes enough debris out of the way so it can get in. She'd heard about him. 'Gelatinous life form' she remembers. 'Intelligent gelatin.'

The door far behind her slides open. She can't turn around, but from too close, too low, she hears "Chaplain McGee?"

She forces herself to turn, and all she can say is "Nngggggg!" as she freezes but this time her wide eyes do hurt. She feels Saunders' hands close on her shoulders, probably to give assurance and comfort like she's supposed to do.

'Let me _GO_!' she wants to say. She can't stop panting and blast it but she's shaking again.

"I'm sorry I scared you," the creature says as it slides along the floor, all yellow blob and eyes and mouth and – "I don't hurt anyone."

"Neee ah. N - n - eee." She's panting so fast she's sure she's going to faint. "Nn – heee!"

The creature - well the eyes rotate away from her, the mouth does so a moment later and it - whatevers - back to the door. Through it. Inside.

x

"Crystal?"

"Leme_go_!" she can force into the whispered scream. He releases her and she stands shaking not quite as hard as before but breathes in gasps that have no rhythm nor consistent depth. He steps around her again.

She has to cover her face with her hands.

x

'Why am I here? I barely pass the Intake Interview, they must know I faked it; I almost scream at Lieutenant Commander Bortus; I make an imbecile of myself in Sick Bay when a crewman hits on me; Doctor Finn probably thinks I'm a coward and she's right; I scream like a four year old when I stand inside the Assistant Chief Engineer and now George thinks I'm a scared little coward and _he's_ right. Not two hours aboard and I've proven myself a hopeless wreck who doesn't deserve to be on _any_ space ship.'

x

"I won't insult you by asking if you're all right," he's saying and she had best pay attention. "But will you be all right?"

'No, I'll be put off the ship at our next port and everyone will be glad I'm gone.'

"I'm sorry," is all she can whisper.

"Do you need help back to your quarters?"

'Yes. _Please._ No, someone will see me shaking like a leaf and it'll be all over the ship. And all those Acting Lessons will go for nothing and my rep, horrible as it is, will be shot. I can do this. I can fake this.' "N-no. I-I'll be all … right." If she could get her breath to work, she could say one simple sentence. She's not trembling as hard, but she wants - needs - could surely use a glass of water for her dry mouth and throat. She forces herself to turn. Her quarters are this way.

"I believe you. Will you be okay by the time the Reception starts?"

She turns back, looks at him. He was speaking English, wasn't he? "Huh? What?"

"The Reception? For us? In Mooska's Lounge?" It sounds like English. "Didn't you know?"

"Reception?" Lieutenant Kitan, when she escorted her to her quarters after the meeting with the Captain and First Officer Commander, she'd told her... "Yes. Yes, I remember," is a bare whisper.

"Then you'll be there?"

'Oh yes. Might as well have one party, one nice time, before they throw me off the ship.' "I – I guess so," she forces.

"Good. I'm sure that once you get settled, you'll look forward to meeting your 'flock',"

'Oh my _God_.'

"Okay, mmmmmmaybe you're right."

"I know I am. Now go, get into your gown and wow these creeps."

"Okay," is tiny. She turns down the corridor, takes a step, two steps, three, his words filter through and she whirls. "My _WHAT_?"


	5. Talmed and Tumult

Chapter Five  
Talmed and Tumult

Alara Kitan steps into her quarters, not a long journey as it's immediately behind the bridge port side on the theory that the bridge is always manned, but there are times when the Security Chief must go from off-duty to at her station in newly record-breaking time. She's never timed herself, that's too much a human thing to do, but she's normally satisfied with her response time, especially since a modification had been made to her quarters and office.

Three months ago, in fact coinciding with the Orville's single trip to Xelaya (she'd fantasized a Shore Leave when it finally came, perhaps with friends who could be shown her world, though they'd need gravity suits) she'd had changes made to the gravity plating. On command, the plating in these rooms and her office can be adjusted to draw matter at a rate 500% that of the rest of the ship, changing her from a toddler's 118 to a Xelayan anorexic tipping the scale at 529 pounds, half of her proper 1,058 by the scale which the Planetary Union measures all things, aka Earth Standard.

She unzips and strips off her red and black jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair. "Computer, set gravity plating to 500%. Engage safety lock."

**Confirmed,** the simulated feminine voice responds.

x

Steadily, inexorably over the course of fifteen seconds, the floor pulls at her with increasing force, the pressure on her feet grows as every part of her body adjusts to the increase. She can feel her organs and all else settle as her body grows steadily heavier until she must expend a tiny bit of effort to stand upright. It's like stepping out of the buoyancy of a pool onto the deck; every muscle, organ, every part of her pulled down harder and harder until

**Gravity set to 500% Earth normal. Safety locks engaged.**

The safety locks she'd installed as a computer subroutine to prevent injury to her crew-mates. Within minutes of the initial changes Gordon Malloy had stepped in at her thoughtless invitation and, as he crossed from the corridor into the room, he was slammed onto the deck at a weight of over 850 pounds.

If not for the grace of Xinxis he could have been killed rather than having started a totally unexpected - for either of them - love affair.

x

And though it's granted that the Chief of Security must be ready to move at a moment's notice, the Gravity program, tied to the Alert systems, takes fifteen seconds to increase or decrease attraction between 5 and 1. It's presumably the same amount of time needed to go from sleep to wakefulness and to be in clothes.

Now that things are at least half of what they should be, she kneels down to begin the first stage of her workout, comes forward and catches herself on her hands, straightens her body to ramrod stiffness and gives herself a fast thirty count set of push-ups.

At least that was the intent but at twenty-four the door signal interrupts. A third of the way up, she looks toward the offending portal.

'Had to be,' she keeps to herself. "Who's there?" carries more emotional content.

"It's Gordon," his familiar voice announces.

"Wait a second," she directs, stepping upright.

"Don't worry, I've fallen for you once already."

She's thus assured that the corridor is clear, for if not... "Computer, restore plates to Earth normal. Cancel Safety Lock."

**Confirmed**

'So much for a workout; though maybe for his 'substitute workout'...'

x

If the increase of gravity is like coming out of the buoyancy of a pool then this is like stepping back in, but she's grown used to this state. The first time she'd tried to walk in Earth 'normal' gravity, however, had not been as pleasant as it is today. Every time she'd recalled it her head had ached in sympathetic response to the recollection of having jumped and instead of a normal Xelayan jump of a few feet she'd collided with the overhead, which led to a very inelegant landing – she'd gone _splat_ upon the deck.

These days, she's far more careful.

"Come in."

x

The door slides open, he's standing framed within the portal for a brief moment before he steps in, the door closes and she remembers why she loves him. Not that she needs any reminder, as the past twelve weeks have supplied her with numerous reasons for their shared feeling.

He steps closer, she's never met him at the door for fear some crew member would be on his or her way to or from the bridge, but when their arms encircle one another their kiss is warm and she feels something hard.

Now not only would he not be so crass as to greet her in the first seconds with that aspect of male physicality but it's too high between their chests. That which presses her breasts flat is flat, not such curves and so forth as she's come to expect. She touches the object hidden below his jacket; the surface is not very thick but is some ten inches square.

"What is this?"

"I made you up a little present," he says, unzips his jacket, draws out the box and hands it to her. It's not heavy, less than a quarter kilo and wrapped in white paper. "I was looking for the right moment to give it to you and thought this Reception would be a good time."

x

She's not sure what to say. The giving and receiving of gifts are not a Xelayan custom but she does remember that it's a traditional aspect of the festival he and many of her human ship-mates will celebrate some three days hence. "Should I open it now?"

"Please."

She tears the white paper, opens the lid and halts. Freezes. "It's from Xelaya," he says quite unnecessarily.

They, the entire crew, had spent several days in the devastated region of Malmoria, the humans and other species bolstered by anti-grav suits, which cut 90% of their weights, while she and the members of other high gravity races moved in perfect ease, or as much ease as one may have while sifting through the rubble of collapsed buildings in search of one crushed body after another. Most of the crew, being limited by the number of available gravity suits, had remained in shielded shuttles receiving the injured for transport back to Orville.

The country was leveled, virtually nothing was left standing, so she can't imagine how he could lay hands upon a Talmed.

x

It's an inch wide silver, near circular band on which two rounded ends come close to touching in front. It hinges open in the middle and is intended to go behind her neck to drape flat at her throat, and up from where the two curved ends almost meet are set three circular light emitters on each side, each a half centimeter apart and a quarter centimeter in diameter, dark at the moment.

"It's very –" catches in her throat. "Thank you. How did you get it?"

"Well, I admit I synthesized it. I saw one of the Relief workers wearing one and thought of how nice you would look in it."

"Than... I..."

"Put it on."

x

She tries to hide her reluctance through smooth motion but she can't tear from her mind the device's colors; even unlit she can tell what the colors would be. In her black shirt her collar is low enough so when she makes herself take the metal band from the box, open it wide by the hinge at the middle, hold her hair out of the way, put it around her neck from the back and close the band so the metal rests on her skin above the shirt's collar. Though she can't see it directly, when she puts her hand before it, she can see upon her palm the lights from the blinking emitters.

She turns to her dressing mirror mounted beside the door, which she habitually uses for a final uniform check before leaving these quarters each morning, and she hadn't been mistaken about the colors.

When the silver had touched her skin, the three small disks on each side had begun to blink in an irregular pattern but with the same set of colors on either side. The six lights blinking in the mirror operate randomly, but the colors are quite vivid and she can't lie to herself.

x

The lowest lights on each side independently blink red, the ones a half centimeter higher blink green without sequence and the uppermost set blink an irregular pattern of blue. "It's lov – lovely. Did the woman you saw have these colors?"

"No, hers were different, but when I synthesized them, I thought of other colors that were better."

'Better?' "So, you chose... these," she manages to finish with nothing that she feels coloring her tones.

"Well, blue is your favorite color, green your second favorite and the red goes with your uniform. I thought you'd look lovely at the Reception. Not that you don't look gorgeous all the time, it's just–"

"Thank you," she whispers, unable to force any volume. "It's – a nice gift. Thank you."

"A little touch of home."

"Yes." She fights to keep thoughts and feeling from her expression. "A little touch."

She turns and hugs him, the embrace presses the metal to her throat and she's relieved that he can't see her face, for she might not be able to hold the mask.

'Xinxis, please don't let anyone recognize this.' She closes her eyes from that horrible image and tries to bury her shame.

'And _please_ never let him find out what he's done.'

xxx

Crystal McGee steps into her quarters, unable yet to think of them as hers. She'd been to her office down the corridor; had stood in it, had Blessed it to be a Sacred space dedicated to the purpose it would serve, and yet it didn't yet feel like hers. The walls were of that same faux wood and while it was basically an abbreviation of her quarters, the room gave the impression of something to be fine tuned beyond merely a dedication.

The potted plants in three corners, the soft light illuminating the wood paneling, the huge - _really_ huge - window that displayed the doppler effects of star stuff rushing from right to left, the serving table before the synthesizer, all together had been more than she had pictured living in when she finally reached space. This and her quarters were almost too much.

She knows she can decorate it to her taste, if only she could figure out what that might be. What kind of decorations are suitable for helping, for counseling, humans and aliens?

_No, _as a shepherd they're_ her flock_! But what to do? She knows what she likes, but what impression does she want to give? She'd brought only one thing with her that'll go on the left wall where in her quarters the view screen is, but other than that she'd traveled light.

She doesn't want to crowd the room with nick-knacks of a dozen different Faiths, no matter how significant they might be to those she would try to help and counsel, but what should she do, presuming that she's not put off the ship as soon as it meets another?

Should she go minimal, restrict herself to the most basic, non-denominational things? She'll have a Cross, no change there - that's a no-brainer - but right now she feels that everything about her is a no-brainer.

She'd escaped from the room as quickly as she could, had gone to Engineering in search of a familiar face and wants to forget as completely as possible the result.

x

Now, back in the privacy of her delightfully appointed quarters with its overly generous couches before the tremendous screen she could watch movies on as though in a theater, or she could host a party here, she nonetheless feels like she'd feel hopeless if she could work herself up to that height.

Trying to put the doubts, uncertainty and all the myriad bad things from her mind, she steps across the room to the desk before the rightmost of three windows, tries not to get lost in the rainbow effects of star stuff rushing from right to left, and reaches for the computer control inset in the flat surface at what would be, when sitting down, at the furthest corner. She recalls she never did remove the chip from the slot before she left so touches the interface.

"Computer, continue Log entry."

**Ready,** the feminine voice says.

"Easy for you to say," she mutters, not wanting to be heard. She sits down and tries to compose this day into a series of as few short sentences as possible.

The rushing rainbows both help and don't help, relax and make her tense. Again, caught off guard, the thought of being thrown out an airlock for – 'NO! Stop It! Just … just stop it.'

x

"Chaplain's Log Sublimin – no. Subst – no. Subli – _No_! _Sup_ \- le - _men_ \- tal. God, I'm _going_ to _jump_ out of an airlock; I just hope you'll catch me."

She forces herself to go through the breath exercises, the computer will edit them out if she tells it to. It takes a full fifteen before she feels normal - or at least not quite as horrible.

"I don't belong here. What was I thinking? I should be an Assistant at a small parish in Oshkosh, not Chaplain of a Starship.

"Proverbs 16:18 is so true, 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.' I never thought of myself as having a haughty spirit; I don't think I'd even know what that'd feel like but I must have it if I've brought this upon myself.

"How did I let my pride, how did I let myself push me into this? I can't go five minutes without messing up. I can't do anything right. I'm scared of messing up, I'm scared of failing when I'm most needed, I'm scared of not being able to serve this crew – I'm scared of some members of the crew!

"I almost screamed when I saw Commander Bortus, I _did_ scream when I saw - _stepped_ _inside_ _of_ \- Lieutenant Yaphit but God I've never been inside someone before. I'm scared of … God, I am so _Scared!_ Why did you direct me here? You _know_ I'm useless."

'Moses was afraid,' she doesn't quite hear in her mind. The silent voice-thought is familiar, but 'Gideon was afraid, David was afraid, Samuel was afraid.'

"I'm not Moses or Gideon or David or Samuel or anyone else," she answers the thought that - was it her own? - it felt so familiar. "I'm Crystal McGee and I convinced myself I could do this but I was wrong. I can't do this.

"I _can't._"

x

She puts her head back, tries to melt into the chair; no, to fall limp in the chair like a marionette whose strings have been cut. She wants to cut them and throw them away – no matter how much nonsense that sequence makes.

"I'm not used to this 'Log' thing. I'm used to keeping a Journal - on _paper_ \- to record my thoughts on lessons, on what I've learned in classes, life lessons too but this Union thing about keeping a Log….

"There's a Reception today, pretty soon now. Great. It will give me a chance to meet the crew, those who come, and I may … I _hope_ be able to force myself to be calm and not scream when I –.

"Okay, this is silly. I am not _that_ much of a coward. At home I never saw an alien: in the Seminary there were many; in the Academy there were a _Lot_ and I got used to being around them but I had time to acclimate. It wasn't like day one, hour one I meet a Moclan for the first time and step in a – what the heck is Yaphit anyway? Note to self, look it up.

"But this will be a chance to socialize, and maybe I can get comfortable enough to carry on a conversation with some of them.

"Lieutenant Kitan is my age, give or take a few months and I think I could let my hair down with her – at least a bit. Doctor Finn seems easy to talk to. I'd better be able to talk to her, I have to work with her, report to her. And Commander Grayson seems okay, I could relax a little when I talked to her even though I was acting and the Captain scares the willies out of me.

"You know, doing a Log isn't too bad, it's like a Journal, or can be, but – _Wait,_ can anyone access a Log? If so, what am I betray –? DARN IT!" She sits forward.

"Computer, delete Supplemental."

**Supplemental deleted.**

She clutches her head, feels the ache coming but forces herself to put her hands down, to take a deep breath and to sound normal; at least to the computer. "Computer, record: Chaplain's Log, supplemental. I've met some of the crew, and there's a Reception soon for the four of us from the Tesla.

"And I have to go."


	6. Gowns

Chapter Six  
Gowns

Alara Kitan approaches the Synthesizer Room, lost in thoughts too few of which are pleasant. 'Ignorance is Bliss' the humans say, and that appears to be the sole answer to 'How could he?'

Now 'all I have to do is keep the entire ship ignorant' is her only consolation.

Immediately after Gordon had left her quarters, she'd taken his present off from about her neck and she's ashamed to have thought 'what if I said I didn't know my own strength and snapped the hinge?'

No. Hurting her boyfriend is no way to preserve her dignity.

Nor would 'I don't have a thing to wear to go with it' be less than an insult, not with a room designed to fashion absolutely anything in the computer's files and with the ability to fashion original things by verbal command. So she'd decided to bite the bullet 'what does that even _mean_?' and to choose something appropriate for the Reception for the new crew.

She hadn't expected to step through the opening door and collide with the back of a green jacketed crew-woman. "Oh, sorry."

The woman whirls to her. "No, my fault."

"Mother McGee?" Did she read fright in that first moment? No, couldn't be. The woman was only startled.

"Who – oh, I remember. Alara Kitan, Chief of Security."

"Yes," she confirms with a smile that's intended to be disarming; it's so rare that she is greeted by her title, but she's unsure which of them she's trying to relax. She'd escorted the new Chaplain to her quarters after her meeting with the Captain, but she's sure the woman has met so many new people very quickly so it's understandable if she loses track.

x

"I was told to come here, to find a dress, a gown really but..." the priest gestures vaguely into the room. Its contents consist solely of a set of lighted cubical pedestals with circular central synthesizer outlets of varying diameters and computer controls at the lower right of each top.

"Are you familiar with the system?"

"No. I mean I've seen synthesizers plenty of times but not like these. I used the one in the Seminary, and the one in my apartment has a hundred controls."

Alara refrains from commenting on this. Union vessels have State-of-the-Art systems and Orville is slightly more than a year out of space dock and therefore many devices are more intuitive than would be found in personal possession, especially among civilians. "Well, it's simple." They step to the nearest pedestal. "You call up the item on the computer, if clothing…."

"A dress. Gown. For the Reception."

x

Alara activates the controls, calls up on the screen above the controls in the near right hand top of the cube the appropriate categories. "Then you fill in the size, color and so forth, then press that button." The woman stares at the control for several seconds. "Would you like some suggestions?"

"When I think of the number of years that I spent wearing anything _but_ dresses... My 'dresses' were black Cassocks and white Albs, my formal gowns were liturgical vestments that were nothing like the things anyone else wears. When I went into the city, I wore stuff as far from formal things as I could get. In summers shorts and tee shirts got me just fine. I literally do not know what would look good."

"How abouuuu...?" Kitan looks the Chaplain down and up, considers. "Computer, one Acaterian dumartican gown, lavender, cut diagonally at top to leave the left shoulder and arm bare." She turns again to Crystal. "What is your size?"

She gives the machine the particulars, pushes the 'Execute' button and a moment later a materialization field in the cube's center rises and falls as a column of white light and a stack of folded cloth rests upon the cube. Crystal takes it by the shoulders, the light purple gown falls out as she removes it from the device and holds it before her. The sheen of material changes shades as it drapes down her body.

"I find that the left side being bare hints at accessibility," Kitan explains. "Right is subconsciously aggressive, as if keeping the sword or weapon arm free."

Sword?

"It does look nice." The gown is not diaphanous nor is it especially ornate but the material flows as she turns it in the overhead light, each change in angle altering the lavender shades in near fluidic harmony. "Very nice."

x

Alara takes her turn at the control; she has a clearer image of what she wants and, in a moment, produces upon the pedestal and lets hang out a cobalt blue gown with subtle Xelayan decorative stitching along a sloping neckline which contains no suggestive or distracting dip. It too has the flowing sheen that is reminiscent of the blue ocean.

The neckline will be low enough to activate Gordon's gift but she hopes the gown will distract from the silver band and most especially the blinking lights.

Right.

x

"Lovely," Crystal says, but when she looks down at the gown before her own body, she seems self-conscious.

"Is anything wrong?"

"Does it seem a little too… sexy?"

"Do you mean 'for a priest'?"

"Uh, huh." She reaches to return the gown to the cube's top but Alara takes hold of her wrist.

"This crew is going to see you in your Worship clothes, in your uniform," she waves her hands over the green and black, "and sweaty, disheveled and panting in plastered tee shirt and dripping shorts after a two-hour Workout; I am a merciless taskmistress. Trust me, there is no such _thing_ as too sexy."

xxx

Having hung the lavender gown in her quarters in the closet with what few favorite vestments she'd brought, she could synthesize more as needed, and Alara had hung her own blue one beside it for later retrieval, Crystal shows her new friend to her office. For now, this is a very informal tour that doesn't get more than a few meters.

Crystal is by no means markedly psychic but she thinks she's picked up on something in the Xelayan woman that's different from her initial manner, and she'd decided to provide privacy should the woman want it, during the guise of casual acquaintanceship should she guess wrong.

She lets Alara into the office first, very conscious of the reversal of roles from so short a time ago when the red uniformed woman had escorted her to her quarters, but now she's self-conscious for in reality there's nothing to show. The faux wood walls and the couch and chair before the viewscreen to their left and the table across the room at the right corner looking out the window at the Doppler stars and the round table opposite it with two chairs and the synthesizer at the right wall are starting to feel Standard Issue and most likely are.

"You can add anything to this place that you want," Alara says.

"I intend to, once I figure out what. You have nine non-Terran races here plus nearly every Terran Faith, but I want everyone to feel represented when they come in. I'm just wondering how do I avoid crowding the walls?"

"If I know humans, you'll get gifts. Post them. I'll be happy to give you something uniquely Xinxisian and I can drop some hints that you're looking to decorate."

"Thanks. I brought this from Earth," she says, picking up from the desk the ten-inch-long emitter bar. She chooses the short wall to her right between the Refresher door and the Synthesizer, peels off a protective covering and, using the automatic leveler at chin height until the tiny light turns from red to green, adheres the device. At a touch of the control, a rectangular blue holographic field appears above, filled with paragraphs of white.

Alara steps beside her hostess, close enough to read the words.

"What is it?"

"Over four hundred years old, it describes the nature of the adversary I'm always to oppose, from the view of a society that became too cool and modern to remember the struggle."

Who does the Mischief?  
Author Unknown.

Men don't believe in the Devil now as their fathers used to do.  
They've forced the door of the broadest Creed to let the rascal through.  
There isn't a print of his cloven hoof or a fiery dart from his bow  
To be found on the Earth anywhere today for the world has voted it so.

So who is mixing the fatal draught that praises heart and brain?  
And loads the Earth with each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain?  
Who blights the bloom of the land today with the fiery breath of hell?  
If the Devil isn't and never was, won't somebody rise and tell?

Who dogs the steps of the toiling Saint and digs the ditch for his feet?  
Who sows the tares in the Field of Time wherever God sows wheat?  
The Devil is voted not to be and of course the thing is true  
But who is doing the kind of work the Devil alone should do?

We're told he does not go about as a roaring lion now,  
But who shall be held responsible for the everlasting row  
To be heard in Home and Church and State, to the Earth's remotest bound  
If the Devil, by unanimous vote, is nowhere to be found?

Won't somebody step to the front forthwith and make his bow and show  
How the frauds and the crimes of the day spring up, for surely we want to know?  
The Devil was fairly voted out and of course the Devil is gone.  
A simple people would like to know who carries his business on?

"That's very powerful," Alara says, then tells her new friend "Xelaya doesn't have a Devil, no one to tempt and to torture us when we die."

"Oh?" she keeps it nonjudgmental, her eyes kept to the poem because bland discretion is something she'll probably never master.

"We have worse."

This pulls Crystal's gaze. "What could be worse?"

Alara turns to her and Crystal sees a horror she hadn't imagined in the Security Chief. "We have Forgetfulness."

Somehow this conveys a horror for the woman that Hell does not. "Forget?"

She has counseled, prayed with, many who wished they could forget.

"Family is everything to Xelayans. There is no other thing that so defines us, our lives, our beings. Our connection to others gives our lives meaning. That's who we _forget_." Her voice, which had started out strong, is hushed further and further by horror. "Family. Love. Joy. Parents. Brothers. Sisters. Children. Grandparents. Grandchildren. All family. _Everyone_. We exist… _alone_… for a billion trillion years and more… with _no one_."

xxx

They'd parted soon after at Crystal's rooms, Alara retrieving her gown to change in her own quarters with plans to get together later in the evening. Their parting had been cordial, yet Crystal had been unable to shake the impression that something was wrong. Several times the Xelayan had been about to speak and had very obviously changed her mind.

She hopes her friend will speak of whatever it is later, even at the upcoming Reception.

x

Now, feeling extremely conspicuous walking the corridors in her long lavender gown when every step changes the shades of the garment, feeling ostentatious and far too distracting in the way the off-the-left-shoulder gown accents her bare arm and shoulder and way ... too … _sexy_, ('I can't even wear a _bra_.') Crystal approaches the door to Mooska's Lounge, but slows with every step.

Of _course_ there's no vacuum on the other side waiting to kill her. Waiting? She has to get over this. There's a party in there, and from the chronometer in her quarters while she was fussing over this gown the party is already going on.

She realizes she's going more slowly, can hardly miss it. She remembers something one of her High School Math Teachers had taught; that if you approach something and halve your approach with every step, you will never actually reach it, you'll just keep approaching it with smaller and smaller progressions, forev –.

"Good evening."

"_Eep_!"

x

She whirls, a tall thin black man is there, wearing a deep blue jacket over black pants and he's trying to smooth down a smile. "Excuse me, did you just say 'eep'?"

"Yes and I'm sorry." She starts to salute, he's not in uniform so she can't tell but Lieutenant is mid-range so she'll play the odds but halts it chest high; these people don't salute so why was she taught it? She extends her hand. "Lieutenant Crys – Chaplain Crystal McGee I mean."

"Good to meet you, Lieutenant Chaplain Crystal," he says, taking her hand. "Again, that is."

"No - I mean - Crystal, not Chaplain - I mean I _am_ the Chaplain but my name's Crystal. Again?" sounds a little safer.

"We met in the Shuttle Bay, though I suppose that was a rush. John LaMarr."

"Crys - you know that."

"Yes." There's that contained, wiped off and refurbished smile.

She flashes through what little she knows of the ship's roster - a grand dozen names. "Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander." Her hand snaps up but she halts it with greater force at neck high, then wishes the deck would open up and swallow her before she does another stupid thing; three Strikes already (counting the 'eep') and she wants to be Out.

x

"That's a very nice dress," forces her eyes down to it. The lavender gown reaches to three inches of the deck (she'd fashioned matching high heeled slippers) and any movement, any breath, changes the effect of the sheen. It bares her left shoulder, that and her arm and the top is diagonal across her upper chest and it doesn't droop but it's _way _too sexy, but the other sleeve is long and it too changes reflection with her movements.

"Chief Kitan made it for me. That is, she programmed the synthesizer."

"Alara." She supposes her face has fallen into 'what?' "We're off duty, and even on duty we're not sticklers for protocol. Unless we're running at Alert or we have VIPs aboard, the Captain runs a, well not a loose ship, we're pretty tight but less formal than, say, the Tesla might be."

She nods, glad of his perception. The Tesla is everything the Orville is not, but there she'd picked up on the rules and expectations pretty quickly. It's hard to make an ass of one's self by obeying the rules. "Takes some getting used to."

"You'll pick it up."

"I'd just picked up the Tesla." But aboard that starship, her first time outside the Solar System, knowing the trip was going to be very brief, she'd been companionable to the ship's crew as she'd been taught in the Seminary - treat everyone alike - but she'd socialized more with her brand new crew-mates heading for Orville. But the saluting, the formality, that was something from the Tesla that she'd adapted to and now it makes her look and feel silly to fall back on them.

x

"Would you like to go in?"

She feels the expression on her face must be a stupid one and tries to cover as quickly as she can. "Yes. I would. Thank you."

For a long moment neither moves, then LaMarr gestures with a sweeping motion behind her. "Oh, yes." She leads the last few steps to the door. 'Direct me oh Lord in this and all my doings with your most gracious favor and further me with your continuing help that in all my works begun continued and ended in you I may glorify your holy Name and finally by your mercy attain everlasting life amen.' The doors slide apart. '_HEEELLLP_!'


	7. Mooska's

Chapter Seven  
Mooska's

Crystal considers it reasonable that before today she'd never imagined a fancy dining establishment (or would it be more of a Night Club?) as standard on a Union vessel.

She must grant, of course, that her knowledge of Union starships extends to exactly one other, but she has the feeling that this establishment takes its essence from the ship and its crew rather than any standard feature of the fleet.

The 'Night Club' is well filled with crew and probably families (no one wears a uniform so who can tell?) so it isn't the terror that she'd been convinced it would be.

Of course, she's only been in the long, curved room which hugs the shape of the portside hull for five seconds but the soft instrumental music, the dim light enhanced by short electric faux candles on the tables and the relaxed, casually mingling guests resemble very little a medieval torture dungeon so just maybe….

John LaMarr, a step behind her, comes beside her and very gently touches her bare arm, and she looks to her left to the conversing quintet. "This is Linda, Peggy, Helen, Joe and Pete. Guys, this is Crystal."

xx

The next hour is a whirlwind of informal socializing during which Crystal hears not a single last name nor rank, even among those she's met earlier. Few are the uniforms that appear, Captain Mercer being a notable exception even in his off-shift, and the styles and colors of other crew-members' attire range from the unique to the outlandish but they are ways of silently establishing ones' self. The women tend to go to gowns to which the spectrum contributes liberally while the men's styles can be generously described as non-uniform.

Mooska himself is far removed from anything she could have dreamed up. Taller than she, he wears a black and white tuxedo of bygone era rather than the sober attire Kate (whomever) has told her he usually wears. There is nothing somber in his manner, he is the quintessential host keeping the party going.

Were she to try to describe him she would get little further than an extraordinary face of mingled mild green and light brown that flows in complete disregard for the expected, coupled with pointed ears that launch themselves from either side of his head and keep going as far as is desired. He is a jolly [what _is_ he?] elf - okay, maybe not but in keeping with the spirit of the Season she'll think of him as an elf until corrected - who sets the social tone and, by tacit agreement she and her fellows from the Tesla do not spend more than moments together. There are simply too many beings to meet even on the cross shifts.

x

She met with Commander Gr – with _Kelly_, who's wearing a green dress she wishes she could have had, none of this half-bared thing that makes her feel too sexy for … for anything. They'd spoken for a few minutes during which the subject had turned to elevator music and someone named Dann, who she should get together with here to discuss Thursday's music. That's an easy thing, she thinks with relief. She can rattle off a hundred titles without any thought at all – something she feels is the way she does most things anyway, but there's going to be absolutely no references to Grandma getting run over by a reindeer nor to Frosty and his magical top hat. She's finally in something she's confident in and her 'flock' is going to be brought in right.

x

She has her first brief moment of comfort, only because it's so familiar, when the vast buffet has been laid out on a table that gave new depth to the term 'groaning board', when Captain Mercer, one of the few in the room still in uniform, says in slightly more than conversational volume "Mother McGee, would you please lead us in Grace?"

She's relieved because she hadn't known the most discreet way of raising the point, had not wanted to be conspicuous and had resolved to offering a silent private prayer for everything and everyone. With the Captain's words she realizes that the days of underscored discretion in such scenes are over.

She raises a hand, pretends comfort and familiarity as though she's done this type of thing at every meal –

And promptly forgets every Blessing she's ever learned.

x

"Thank you, Captain," she temporizes, her arm slowly falling as if of its own weight. "Ladies and Gen – I mean 'brothers and sist' – that is…. I know we… we represent different cultures and cust – I mean –" The music shifts to something appropriate. 'Who's doing that?'

Perhaps it's her Guardian Angel come to her rescue, perhaps not, but there flashes into her mind the voice and image of Fr. James McKnight: 'When called upon for extemporaneous prayer, and you will be, don't try to think or remember, just raise your voice and charge ahead.'

She raises her hand again and fights not to stammer.

"Father, we thank you for this day, for friendships new and renewed. We ask you to Bless this food to our use, our lives to thy continuous Service, in the Name of – in Your Holy Name, Amen."

There's a comingled reply in more words and languages than she can discern; she just works to hold her smile and forces herself to breathe.

First one is done, only three hundred thousand to go, but she remembers to give the small replies of gratitude at the compliments that come at the start of each conversation she drifts into. Everyone in the lounge is very much at casual ease and in due course she finds herself with Alara at the bar.

x

"What are you drinking?" Alara asks, taking note of the thicker than usual remnant coating the upper half of her glass.

"Pear nectar."

"What's that?"

"It's from my planet, the juice of a fruit together with some of the fruit itself to give it 'body'." Finding a used glass in reach and a paper napkin, she scrubs the glass inside and out and pours a measure in. "Try it."

Alara is cautious; humans and Xelayans are compatible, as she's lately confirmed once again and most thoroughly, but still little can be said for taste. She tries a sip of the sweet, somewhat thick concoction.

"What'll it be?" Mooska asks in jovial tones from the other side of the bar. "Your usual?"

She chunks the glass down upon the wood. "Pear nectar."

The look he favors the new priest with says 'you've started something'.

"Surprised you're not having something stronger," Alara observes. She would and this isn't even her party, it's for the newcomers.

"Never. I do not _touch_ alcohol. Even the wine I use in the Eucharist is unfermented grape juice."

"Is that 'legal'?"

"Absolutely."

x

Alara has no idea, having only ever heard of 'bread and wine' in the ceremony she thinks her new friend is alluding to. For her part, she revels in down time and the opportunity to chat with her new and apparently no longer nervous friend, right up to the moment when she sees the Priest's eyes light, predictably, upon the blinking silver band around her throat, declaring it 'a very lovely piece'.

She wishes the woman hadn't noticed it, but it's hard not to see, particularly in the dimmed light, the sets of three tiny irregularly blinking lights at the ends of each silver band. Contact with her bare skin sets the blue, green and red lights on each side in complex independent blinking patterns of light.

"Thank you. It's called a Talmed."

"Tal - med?"

"It's worn, well, in Thuzindra, one of the nine countries of Xelaya. I'm amazed he found it." 'And I wish he hadn't.'

One of Gordon's endearing qualities is his diligence. Tonight, it's not a blessing.

x

"Do the colors mean anything?"

She can't look at the woman's face, looks out the huge port and its view of passing celestial matter instead, but she's never been one to run from anything and won't start it now, not with a new shipmate and especially one whose job is that she's intended to be a Confidant.

Who knows, maybe some day she may be a friend?

She forces herself to meet the woman directly. "Yes. Yes, they do."

"Why am I sensing something really terrible?"

She wants to deny it, to fight it, but "Because you are sensing something really terrible."

x

"What?" Crystal asks, her voice low.

Alara doesn't know this human priest, but "Can I trust you to keep a secret?"

Now it's the woman's turn to look uncomfortable. She drops her voice so low that she supposes only Xelayan ears could pick up her words clearly. "As Security Chief you'll understand that I'm legally bound to tell you that outside of the Absolute Confidentiality of a Sacramental Confession, I must report anything that has to do with your being a danger to yourself or someone else, if a child is in danger, or if I am to testify in Court."

"I respect that. No, none of those things."

"Then I'm all ears."

Perhaps it's a subconscious thing but Kitan reaches up, touches the straight canals of her distinctive pointed ears but she smiles briefly, lowers her hand and admits "That's usually my line with humans."

"Sorry."

"No. It's –."

x

Crystal can count the number of seconds her new shipmate is caught under the music, decides she's intruded into something intensely personal and flashes through her mind for a graceful way to end the conversation when Alara touches the unsynchronized blinking band very briefly.

"This is known among a subculture in Thuzindra," she says, the point emphasizing her discomfort, "and it announces the terms of a relationship between two people. The colors have meanings, the pattern has a meaning. He had his own interpretations about each of the colors, doesn't know a Xelayan's and thought I'd like it."

"And you don't?" She keeps to her quietest voice.

"It's not that exactly, it's that the colors…. To a Thuzindran the blue announces I'm paired, what to a human would be 'engaged', which is fine because he doesn't know it and who knows, maybe some day…." She visibly reconsiders the point before resuming.

"Actually, it's more like 'bonded', a deeper attachment or, well, more than what humans perceive an engagement to be."

"Sounds good." 'So far,' she keeps from her face and her non-committal tone. Her friend's announces that another boot is about to drop and she realizes neither of them want it to.

"The green announces I'm sexually active but with only one person, which is also true though I'd crawl under the deck plating if someone were to read that. That is absolutely no one's business."

"Definitely not," she says with as much emphatic agreement as seems appropriate. 'I don't want lights announcing _my_ sex life – if I had one.' "And the red?"

Kitan's face reddening to the same shade as the light, she whispers "It tells everyone who can read it that I am totally Submissive to my Master."

"Master?" The floor seems to drop out from anything romantic.

"The message, for anyone who can read it, is that I'm a Taken, Owned and Bonded Sex Slave."

x

Crystal's eyes widen; she's sure if they could get wider it would hurt. Her mouth slowly falls open before she can stop it and clamp it shut. "Oh my God," is the tiniest of whispers. "And he doesn't know?"

"Absolutely clueless. He chose the colors because he thinks it's pretty. He would never_humiliate_ me like this."

"I swear, I'll never tell a soul."

x

Alara believes the woman, suspects she had better learn to trust her for if she understands her new friend's job, which she doesn't, the Chaplain's role is to be a confidant and, if necessary, mediator, but telling her this only solidifies her determination that "I am never going to put this on again. Thank Xinxis this is only the second Reception we've had all year and if we do have another, I'm reporting myself sick."

"Hardly a reason for that. What woman wears the same jewelry to two consecutive parties?"

A Human trait? But these are humans. "Thank Xinxis."

"Now that is something we _can_ talk about," Crystal says at normal volume. "Beside the obvious, who is Xinxis?"

That's when the room goes black.


	8. Orville Falls

Chapter Eight  
Orville Falls

The darkness is absolute, the kind where even passing fingers an inch before the eye changes nothing, and the instrumental background music vanished into the void. But worse than that is the feeling that all internal organs are released from their steady downward pressure. The pull, ignored since minutes after birth, is gone and boots leave the deck.

There is little noise, just quiet sounds of distress from those unfamiliar with the sensations of absolute freedom.

Crystal McGee's panicked bleat, high in her throat, is the only sound she hears. She can feel nothing around her, can see nothing, only knows - remembers - enough to freeze, for if she flails as her body wants to do, she _will_ get hurt.

But before she can try to orient herself, she does feel something - a hand - close in a firm grip around her left ankle and she realizes that, with the exception of her gasps and the thudding of her heart in her ears, the room had been silent for but a moment.

As if panic has released her ears when she felt that grip and the awareness that she's being slowly drawn downward seeps through the terror, she hears a single calm male voice.

"–one hurt?"

A broken chorus of scattered 'nos' reminds her that she should say "no" too. She does get it out between panting gasps, but her heart pounds so hard she can barely hear anything else as her feet touch the deck. On her left six lights rise, two sets of blue, green and red blink in an irregular non-sequence and curve in a near V to illuminate a bare neck and she sees this isn't the only light in the black room.

A hand touches her bare arm, runs down to her hand and guides it to a cool wooden bar top which she clutches tightly, clings to it with both hands.

Panic giving way with her tight grip, her racing breath and pounding heart allowing her enough space to let thoughts intrude, she realizes several things at once. People are speaking, calmly voicing instructions rather than questions; she can see pinpoints of light at the large view port where she'd earlier stared in fascination at the rainbow streaks flashing by from left to right and an industrial strength blender is churning the snacks and drinks that had lain settled in her stomach.

She clamps her left hand to her mouth barely in time and clamps her teeth and lips together behind her palm. This is a battle she must win, for though she won't see the result of failure until gravity is restored and the lights come on, she's determined not to lose.

Best to stand - float - quietly and endure it while she listens, locks on to, the calm voices around her.

x

"–ohn, can you get to the door?" that initial voice, Captain Mercer's she recognizes now far to her right, is answered by one as far to her left.

"Pretty near it, Captain. Engineering and Damage Control teams, drift over to me." A little mechanical noise and "I have the emergency manual control but what really bothers me is what we're hearing, as in nothing."

"No kidding." A moment. "Mercer to all department heads, report."

"Captain, most of _us_ are here," another voice speaks for the group. No one needs to say 'getting acquainted'.

"Mercer to Isaac."

He's the one least likely to socialize and is often known to spend double shifts on the bridge, but this time the only answer is silence.

x

But while this was happening the sounds of what tools have been employed in opening the door has formed an undertone to the drama until, with the suddenness of their extinguishing the lights blast dark-accustomed eyes as they come back on to the rest of the aborted note and the musical background resumes.

At the same instant gravity snaps on and distinguishes those accustomed to space travel from their less experienced fellows, the latter of whom encounter the deck with varying degrees of dignity.

Alara, still beside her, lands on her feet saying 'no gradual conversion?' while Crystal dashes for the Ladies' refresher with both hands clasped over her mouth.

x

Through the long window those who choose to look can see that the stars had resumed their right to left motion, but this momentarily before they halt again, this action certainly directed from the bridge.

"John."

"No need to say it, Captain," LaMarr says from the now open door. Down the corridor the lights are on and two crewmen are righting themselves. He touches a button on the panel beside him. "All Engineering and Damage Control personnel to your stations!"

Mercer taps his communicator on his left sleeve, gratified to hear the answering chirrup. "General Quarters. All Personnel to General Quarters."

Within seconds all non-civilians exit en masse, leaving nine people other than himself and the First Officer who awaits his direction. "That gravity should have come on over fifteen seconds," he says.

"It did back in May."

"Let's see what Isaac has for us." Together they head for the portal. "Nice dress, by the way."

Her answer is a whispered "You just wanted to see it while the gravity was off."

x

Two minutes later the bathroom door slides aside and Crystal steps out into the quiet. Someone had turned off the mood soothing music and even the civilians have departed, most to their quarters where they'll be out of the way, and presumably safe unless called upon.

"Where'd everybody go?"

"G.Q." Mooksa says from where he cleans one of the tables. Being stable, some pieces had not moved unless the tables had been nudged. "General Quarters."

"Well, thank God I'm not completely alone."

"These _are_ my General Quarters."

"I guess I'd best go to my office?" She looks around the disordered room. "Unless you could use a hand?"

"Naah, I've got it, thanks. But you move carefully, in case this happens again. And again, 'welcome aboard'."

"Thanks." She heads toward the door, then stops as it opens and looks back. "Mooska, is it always like this?"

"Naah. Sometimes this ship gets crazy."

xxx

On the Bridge Mercer, Grayson and the Alpha Shift crew join with their Beta counterparts to address this latest crazy. Beta officers had moved to backup stations when the primaries arrived.

"Sensors recorded zero data," Isaac responds to the Ship-master's question begun before he'd crossed the threshold. "All ship functions were deactivated for a period of 93 seconds."

"Except for you," Kelly notes.

"And Alara's talmed," Gordon says, glancing from his board to his beloved at her station.

"Yes, I noticed. Very nice by the way."

"Thank you," she says, trying to hide her reluctance to discuss it and wishing she'd thought to take it off.

Then again, she wishes she'd had the seconds in which to stop at her quarters, to throw off her decorative cobalt blue gown and yank on her uniform.

Except for the Captain and the Beta crew no one is in uniform, yet she feels underdressed. But a GQ call is always 'Come As You Are', but this damned talmed –

The Captain's saying something - to her - in a tone with a definite edge. "I'm sorry, sir?"

"I asked you, twice, 'how is it powered?'"

"Er, bioelectric circuit, sir. It lights when worn in contact with bare skin."

"My power system is self-contained," Isaac reports something they already knew.

"So, is it only shipboard power that was affected?"

"Ensign Clayborne has an artificial heart," Kelly points out. "If that had been affected, we'd know it by now."

"Right. Gordon, any change in Heading or Speed?"

"We're on a bee line for Catonis II, just as you ordered. ETA remains steady plus the time we drifted while the Quantum Drive was out."

x

And thus it goes for twenty seven minutes of analysis, testing, evaluation and determination. The final conclusions are no damage, no failures, no problems and no answers.

"Only thing I can think of," Gordon ventures, "is there something weird about that spot in space we went through. If so, inertia may have carried us beyond its range. We could turn around and see if we can get a better look."

Mercer considers this with an Explorer's sensitivity and the appeal of Mystery but with the knowledge that his ship and crew had suffered… what..? with no ill effects. "No. We'll continue on to Catonis, drop off those seeds and so forth and then, if it's still there, we'll take a closer look on the way back." He looks to his left. "Alara, secure from General Quarters. Isaac, keep a close watch on the sensors. If they even blink wrong, call me."

"There is no blinking readou–"

"Never mind." He looks to the chronometer on the bulkhead, 2214, six hours since change of shift. "Alpha shift to bed. I'm going to want you bright tailed and bushy eyed in the morning."

"No problem there," Kelly announces as she surrenders her Station, "I'm bushed already."

xxx

Lt. Crystal McGee left her office when the loudspeaker above her head had announced in Alara Kitan's voice that the alert had ended. It has been too long a week - two days - _one day_? Impossible.

Her quarters are six doors down the corridor to her left, seconds away, but she passes no one on the short trek.

She sits down at her desk, remembers that last time she hadn't been able to relax her knees well enough to do so.

She would pull the gown down her right shoulder but if she does so she'll take it to her otherwise empty closet, not come back again but prepare for bed. After a short debate with herself which grows more intense as she wonders what, if anything, she should do; should she call Dr. Fi – Claire – and ask for instructions? she sits down at the desk. She would rather not record anything, but like so many other things it's a useful discipline – should she ever want to review anything.

The chip is still in the Reader. 'I really _have_ to find a safe place to hide this.' She stares at the thing; wishes she'd never seen it. 'I don't even know what's on it anymore, what with recording, chickening out and deleting. Should I try rerecording some things, just so I'll have a record of my probably very short career here?

'No.'

x

"Chaplain's Log, December 22, 2420, double supplemental. Okay, that's not a legitimate phrase but what can I do?

"If things go as fast every day as they have today, I'm going to have to find some way of telling the parts of the day apart. Anyway, it's 2238 and when I get done recording this I am going to _bed._

"The Reception is behind me, and it was nowhere nearly as horrible as I thought it might be. I met so many people I can't keep names and faces straight but at least now this ship doesn't feel like a ship of strangers. I may actually be able to enjoy being here – until I really mess things up and get kicked off.

"I was talking for a while with Alara Kitan, the Chief of Security; we've chatted several times, familiar face and all and she helped me choose this gown…"

"I am never wearing this again. Ever. First day on the ship, I'm wearing this elegant, elegant gown but there's no way I can wear a bra, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror, over and again and I could see my _nipples_ – thank you God that they weren't hard, just soft bumps and I wanted to _die_! I hate, hate, _hate_ it when no one is noticing except me and yet sometimes I look and someone's gaze flickers off me so fast he could get ocular whiplash.

"Well, anyway I didn't run out to the Synthesizer Room but I prayed so much I was sure God was going to tell me to shut up and stop pestering Him. He _told_ me He had my back and when I finally stopped freaking, I realized that He did.

"And then the lights went out."

x

"It's like when someone comes up behind you and clamps their hands over your eyes and whispers 'Guess Who!' You're not afraid but you're working very hard to identify feel and voice and it's fun.

"This was not.

"With the lights the gravity went out. Then I don't want to know what but all I could think about was not losing my snacks.

"And then I suddenly realized I was scared to death and then I wasn't afraid - for a bit. Alara kind of came to my rescue, and in that moment, we weren't Security Chief and Chaplain, but we were just two people at a party. Floating.

"She's like me, maybe a year older and is a settled officer, far from her planet so maybe I...

x

"I got to meet all the main Officers and a lot of the crew. It – the reception – was in Mooska's so people could spread out and relax and even I could relax. Mostly.

"It's kind of a Lounge / Night Club. Wow, who has a Night Club? The Tesla, despite its size, didn't have a Night Club and I have trouble picturing Captain Vasnic, who I met with a grand total of three times; once on boarding, once at Orientation and once on disembarking, having a Night Club aboard.

"I forced myself to stay away from George, Kevin and Bill, probably more than I should have but there were so many to meet that it'd have been rude to cluster with those I know - knew - but maybe it was rude to keep my distance. I'm not sure.

"I remet Yaphit; I saw him coming this time so it was a lot better, I didn't step on - into - him at all so that was better. He's an interesting … whatever, I forgot to ask … but we talked for a while and he didn't try to come on to me, maybe George talked to him, I don't know and don't really want to. And coming on to me, I wouldn't even know how that could be physically possible and it's another thing I really don't want to know.

"I also re-met Bortus and no, I didn't almost scream again, I think I'm getting used to … well, I met him and his mate. They're both nice, well, polite. I have to check if standoffishness is a cultural thing, I have no idea, but Klyden was, well, I don't know. It was like he talked to me but didn't, like he was 'acting' polite rather than being polite. I guess with Klyden that's from not being an Officer and not having to be 'on' all the time. Like me he's a civilian, except unlike me he's not ranked.

"God, I could wish I weren't.

"Oh, and he's a man. On Mocla - Moclus? - I must find out, I knew but I forget; anyway they're all men. No women on their planet, none at all, never have been, never can be. How they have a son I really must look up. I didn't meet the son, he was with a sitter, but I will in time. But boy, family counseling is going to be a challenge with them. Maybe.

"I think of Paul Russen; he was in my class at Trinity but dropped out. He tried for a long time but could not handle homosexuality, and you get no choice at all on the matter of helping everyone no matter who they are, how they are or where you find them.

But I have to admit I'm not much better; the thought of having a _girl_friend - and being _intimate_ with her - gives me the willies.

"But I prayed with and for Paul, because it's something he couldn't seem to get over or around. I wonder, if he had made it, if he would have gone - come? - into the Union Space Program. Can I imagine him being assigned to serve on Moclus?

"No."

x

She stops, considers, considers more. "Could _I _consider a… relationship… with a woman?" She shudders. "Friendship is one thing…. But do I have the right to … whatever … Paul, when the thought of….

"No. No, I don't.

"'You cannot deal with what you will not know,' Father Seamus said, oh, a couple hundred times. Okay, he wasn't _talking_ about this, but if called on I'm going to have to pray a mini-Novena and go in there and do couples' counseling.

"Note to self: save this so that if I _am_ kicked off for failing in my duty, I can look back and kick myself."

She takes a deep breath and lets it out hard. 'Does this get recorded somewhere else?' She really wants to get off this subject and remembers this is _her_ Log, and decides she really does need that kick. And sleep.

x

"I met Alara's boyfriend – no, that's not right. I met Helmsman Gordon … Gordon … _darn._ Anyway – Malloy, that's it. At first, I wasn't hearing properly with the music, soft as it was, I thought he'd said 'Mallory' and my heart almost flipped but it's Malloy. O'Mallory, well, it's family history and would only be a coincidence, we're not related, but the original Reverend McGee, the one who married Timothy McGee back in the 21st Century, was O'Mallory before she became McGee and had Craig, Harry and Erin – so that makes Siobhan the _original_ Mother McGee which made Erin the second and me the –

"Stop _Blathering_!"

x

"Oh yeah, the blackout. Anyway, I wasn't scared, per se. When my eyes adjusted, I could see the stars through the huge window, except they were standing still where they _were_ flashing backward to our tails.

"The gravity went off and –

"Come on, who am I kidding? I was scared out of my freaping _gord_. And sick like someone had taken my stomach and shook it. When the gravity came on, I made it to the ladies' room before – Never Mind."

x

"Anyway, I didn't betray Alara's secret, not that I ever would, but he was not the kind to give someone a 'gift' that would hurt her, particularly someone he loves. While we were talking, he was telling me about nightmares he was having about the time he and Captain Mercer were on the Krill ship - how we even got on the Krill I don't know, probably a carryover from my Intake Interview - Did I pass? They haven't fired me yet. And he told me something I had absolutely _not_ been Cleared for in my time in the Academy, how they celebrated their religion by plunging a dagger over and over into some man's head.

Right, I'd have nightmares too and I don't particularly trust tonight – except I have to get this out of my head and really want to get to _bed_.

"But I helped him as much as I could. I think I helped; I never really know but I tried. I'm always trying, at least that's what Mary Anne says. Sisters can be so….

x

"I've been up since four, preparing for the transfer, saying Advent Mass because their Chaplain is a Delmarkian - that's fine - but Christmas is a distinctly human thing.

"But I've yet to celebrate a Eucharist here. There I was a fill-in, here I'm the real thing. Official. Idiot.

"Other cultures have different things; all cultures have something but I expect God did them one at a time when it was the right time for them."

She slumps down in the seat, declares to the overhead "Oh God, that's a Course in _itself_ and if I start on it I'll never get to bed this month."

x

"But anyway, while we were talking, he caught sight of Alara across the room and his love washed over me like... well, they're a couple, that much is clear, and his gift does look very nice on her. Between those six and his eyes it was like there were eight lights on her.

"Well, anyway, the blackout and the gravity and the weightlessness. Well, I was hovering there in midair and I freeze, trying to keep quiet because if I didn't it was really going to humiliate me because no one else was freaking out, when I felt Alara's hand grab my ankle and ease me down. When she stood up and I saw her neck thingy over the panic, panting and all until I could clench hold of the bar with all my might and pray it wouldn't move and… oh _heck_."

x

She drops her head into her propped up hands on the desk, more a crash, looking down at the desktop, not wanting to see or get lost in the rushing stars. "Computer."

No, she _doesn't_ like the sound, there's a reverb. 'What am I going to do? I am useless here.' She pulls at the right shoulder of her gown before remembering to undo the back. 'Maybe a shower. I am so _tired_ –'

**_BEEP_**

'Oh yes, you're waiting for me to have something intelligent to say. Do I really want anyone hearing all that; maybe if someone's assigned to do my eulogy by the time this mission is over...?'

She sits up straight. "Computer, delete that last entry."

**Last entry deleted.**

x

She touches the off button and steps toward the bedroom, reaching back to undo the gown.

xxx

It's end of second shift, 1600 to 0, Beta to Gamma, when Kelly Grayson finally gets onto her bed. She's switched to silken pajamas so smooth it's like wearing a cloud and the indulgence guarantees a restful sleep.

Perhaps that is why as soon as she pulls the blanket up and closes her eyes the door annunciator downstairs chirps. She clenches her fist, then forces herself to open her hand.

"Someone wants to be busted, in either way."

As she shoves the blanket aside and stands up, the sound repeats from down the spiral stairs and she catches sight of the chronometer on her dresser; 0003.

She leaves off her robe, hoping to say by this that she has no intention of inviting the visitor to feel welcome and descends the spiral staircase upon bare feet. She's naked under the silk but it provides enough coverage, and she makes it down six steps when the chime sounds again. "I'm Coming!"

'And it had better be super urgent'. Crossing the main room, she reflects that there is only one person aboard that she cannot snap at.

She touches the button on the panel beside the door and discovers her luck has run true to form. "Ed."

"Hi, Kelly." He's still in uniform but looks down and back up her ununiformed figure in the way that only an ex-husband could dare – though she's standing in the doorway in an active corridor. She backs in, he follows and the door hisses shut. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"Haven't been to bed yet." She hopes he gets the message, though technically he doesn't have to. He's her C.O. but more than that she has nothing he hasn't seen, touched… fondled… played w–

Enough of this is a great plenty. _She's_ the one who's been saying 'no'. She backs away two short steps. This is to be a brief encounter.

x

"I came to tell you the result of Isaac's research," he tells her, which puts her mind back on business. No.

"Yes?"

"Pretty mild. We passed an ancient satellite some species forgot a few thousand years ago, their radioactive shield seems to have failed and it was putting out a wash that could light up Luna or Mars. No risk to the crew, we were in and out of range in seconds, but you know the rest. Isaac's still analyzing the field; he says it's nothing like he's ever seen."

"That must stick in his claw."

"You know it. He's doing a quadruple to get it all done but we were in and out of its range so quickly that even after we fell out of Quantum space and drifted the equipment felt it more than we did and then the resets engaged."

"Well, that's good," she says, hoping he's done and ready to leave. "We already knew there was no damage. At least none we can find. They'll stay vigilant for as long as needed for any delayed problems to manifest." That's enough to tell him she knows all this from the reviews, so if he's done they can pick this up at 08.

"True, but I'm happier with anssssss…. What's that?" He's looking past her left shoulder toward the spiral staircase, she turns around but can see nothing unusual.

"What did you see?" she asks as she turns back to him.

x

His hands move so fast that surprise catapults into shock and holds her in place as much as the agony in her breasts. She screams, too hurt to do more as his hands clench as though to crush them.

She starts to move to break his twin grips but he yanks, shifts aside and she's thrown with horrific force against steel door.

She slams full body into it, stunned in too many senses by his viciousness. Her released breasts top the pain in her body at the full impact and she still can't move fast enough as the powerful hand reaches past under her arm and crushes her breast, spins her around. She's shoved back with frightful force into the door.

She struggles to keep upright. _ED_ is hurting her! Disbelief prevents her from seeing the hard fist that slams into her face, crashes the back of her head into the steel.

Her right breast is released, the instant gives her no relief as his fist crashes into her face, pounds her head back so it bounces off the door. Left, right, left, right, left, right… when it stops she can only hold on to the last thread of consciousness. Her knees give way, she senses herself slide downward and the sudden renewed agony in her breasts makes them feel as though they're being crushed like grapes!

She can't think, her scream rockets to a shrill shriek as she's torn from the wall, spun about and thrown!

She never feels herself crash to the deck.

x

Mercer stands over the unconscious woman, panting from the thrill of her defeat. Blood flows from her nose and mouth and incipient bruises are already visible. He bends, grabs both sides of the silken garment and yanks. Buttons fly through the room and for a time he stares at her lovely breasts, high and reddening, the marks of his fingers standing out in sharp relief.

Her pajama top torn apart, her arms flung outward, only her hips and legs are obscured.

He moves down to her waist, grabs the elastic of the smooth garment and as the door slides open behind him he yanks hard, tears the bottom from hips to knees.

x

"If you're going to rape her," the woman's voice makes him look back to two blue and red uniformed women, Grayson and Kitan standing framed in the open portal, "don't let us stop you."

"I won't," Mercer growls, yanks the pajama pants so hard they fly off her feet and the follow through flings them across the room. "What about the others?" He kicks Kelly's legs hard apart. Her shaven labia display a delicious treat.

"We had drinks in his quarters," Grayson says as they enter the room and the door reestablishes privacy. "Mercer wanted to talk about the blackout," she says with a laugh. "He's such a lush he never tasted the sinabarthal. He'll be out for a day."

"The Security bitch was so surprised," Kiran declares, "she never knew what hit her. Her head dented the bulkhead."

"She alive?"

"Who f°ckin cares?"

x

Mercer, standing between Kelly's spread legs, staring at the unobstructed view, had never taken his eyes from the naked woman beyond that glance and now kicks her thighs hard enough to bruise to get her open far enough. He starts opening his pants.

"Want us to hold her?" Grayson offers.

"Do what you want. I haven needed help fillin a twat in years." He'd been hard since his first grip of those sweet tits.

He kneels down, frees himself. She's starting to move her head, coming out of the fugue as he grabs her wrists, positions them on either side of her head, puts his weight hard on them to trap her and to use the added pain to wake her faster. He aims for his target by touch.

He feels Grayson and Kitan grip the blonde beauty's ankles, raise her legs and spread her wider.

The woman forces her eyes open. Her face is blood lined in all directions from mouth and nose.

She looks so shocked to be laying on the deck, to see him above her holding her wrists down by her head, to feel her ankles held up and legs wide apart and to realize what he's going to do as he positions himself, presses hard at her soft lips.

He likes it when they're conscious.

She shrieks so beautifully.


	9. Divergence

Chapter Nine  
Divergence

Crystal awakens as she has trained herself to do, with the Sign of the Cross and Prayer, a practice she has tried to make automatic but not let it become rote, then she opens her eyes and lets in confusion, because this bedroom, this bed, aren't….

'Oh. Orville. I'm … I did make it; I'm on the Orville, and I suppose I'd better get used to this room.

'Orville. Intake interview. Captain Mercer. Commander … Grayson. Alara – Alara Kitan. Security. Bortus. Oh, _freep_, Bortus; he scared the life out of me and this is what little I have left.'

Slowly, piece by piece, she reconstructs yesterday, everyone she'd met, the party, the blackout and floating in a lot of no fun.

'Don't ever let anyone tell you that being weightless is a good thing, unless of course you're on a diet. That would have been _so_ humiliating.'

x

Pushing those memories aside, at least until she's ready to process them, she again touches her forehead, reaches down her body as far as she may to touch through the blanket, then lightly to left and right shoulder. She ends with her hand pressed flat over her heart. It's not the common way to conclude, it's hers.

'Father, I thank you for this day and all that will come. I thank you for yesterday and all that happened, for new friends and new experiences. Thank you for these people, and please grant me what I need to do what I can for them in your Great and Sacred Name.

'Please give me the confidence to _believe_ that I am where You want me to be, that I am here to do what job You have ordained. I'm sorry for my doubts, for my fears. Please help me not to be so _Afraid_!'

Her thoughts fracture and she has to stop, to determine that having asked for courage she will receive it, and in her faith she'll be able to do her duties.

And maybe doing them will eventually give her the confidence to do them.

xx

The Personal is in a tiny room at the left corner of the room and she thinks probably shares the rest of the space with another set of quarters. Showering and dressing in her black and green uniform with embroidered circular patch of a green and white book outline are mundane enough acts to convince her of the reality of her morning. Under the bedroom lights she finds the silver ring on her right hand glitters, the image of the crucifix with the Savior's arms outstretched on the gibbit adds new depth and focuses her mind on the rest of her morning prayers. She resolves that before breakfast she'll give the Log entry at least a one-time attempt today, hoping she will not chicken out - again.

Leaving her bedroom, the desk is right there by the door with the third very large 'don't even _think_ it' window beyond it, stars shooting by right to left. 'Should I try to learn to guess our speed by the look of the stars? Maybe George can give me some clues or pointers?'

x

Sitting down at the desk, she takes a long, lung busting breath, holds it for nearly a second too long and exhales the first sentence.

"Chaplain's Log, December 23, 2420, my first day on the Orville ended kind of not as horribly as I'd been afraid it would. It ended, at least for me, with the Reception. Did I record the Reception? I forget, I was so tired I barely remember going to bed.

"Oh, yes, I did record it. And then I _deleted_ it.

"Okay, this is going to have to stop or this will be a frapping small file of my non-history, but...

x

"I have a plan. Today I'm not going to stress.

"Yeah, _right_. But yesterday everyone was so nice, no one was scary dark… well, I didn't scream. Too much. Forget Yaphit, no more of that.

"Today I'm just going to wander the ship. Who knows when I'll become so busy that I won't have time? But anyway, I'll just chat with anyone I see, get to know them, no pressure - at least not on them.

"Anyway, I'm suspecting Commander Grayson is the go-to woman about scheduling Services, or am I supposed to take charge of that? Yeah right, I'm the Chaplain, the Commander's got to have her hands full. I'm sure she has her hands full with that power failure. Captain Mercer, I read where a First Officer's job is to provide the Captain with a working ship - what is that exactly? I don't know - but I'm sure he's going to want it.

"It's a little before Christmas, two days - rather a smidgen less - can I do a Midnight Service? No, too ambitious. Anyway, I'll try her this afternoon.

"No. I won't. She's not going to want me coming to her asking permission to do my job. She's going to want me to make my plans and then come to her for her approval or rejection, and I'd better learn to do that if I want to keep her as a friend, or at least keep in her good graces.

"This first one for Eve will be non-denominational, it'll have to be. Yeah, a non-denominational Christmas, that'll work. Then I'll go down to Engineering and give Commander LaMarr some suggestions on how to run his department."

She sits back, tries to breathe the tension from her body. It still doesn't work. Where to go from here?

x

"I have a haaaall of a lot of studying to do. I studied the other Religions represented on this ship, and all other known ones short of the Krill, until I was orange in the face but I've only presided over a ceremony once, but that was a fill-in, but to be called on to preside? To do it regularly as the one in Charge?"

She tries the breathing exercises again, feels a bit better. "No. I _asked_ for confidence to not be afraid, so I cannot slip back into doubt. I feel better today, things are starting to make sense. It's rude to ask for a gift and then not use it.

"Where was I?" Somewhere.

"Computer?"

**Ready**

"Play back that Log entry please."

**Please specify date of entry."

"You kidding? December 23, 2420."

**There is no Log entry for that date on file.**

"_What_?" She looks to the small blue chip that resides in the holder at the left corner of her desk beside the intercom / computer link. The light beside it is dark.

She'd forgotten to turn it on.

xxx

At 0800 Mercer, Grayson and Kitan enter the half intensity lit bridge, take their stations and Mercer formally relieves Lt. Jan Margolin from the center starboard seat. All other Alpha shift officers have already assumed their posts.

"Any problems, Lieutenant?" he asks the woman in tones that suggest he doesn't want any.

"No, sir," she says, standing neither at Attention nor Ease in accord with her C.O.'s style. "There have been no lingering effects from last night's power interruption. All systems normal. Lt. Commander LaMarr reports the engines operating at 106.8 percent efficiency."

Mercer doesn't shift his head, only his eyes to meet the woman's. "One hundred six percent."

"Point eight."

Okay, over 100 of standard acceptable efficiency but he still doesn't like it. "Very well, Lieutenant, I have the Bridge. Get some rest. I'm planning an efficiency drill tonight, and I want all Stations at a hundred nine."

"Yes, sir."

As she strides to the bridge's stern, Mercer commands "Begin day watch," and the lights come up to full intensity. "Ensign Sporelli."

The Navigator glances back over her shoulder, her words low as though not wanting him to think she's correcting him. "Sportelli, sir."

"Yes, of course, sorry. Plot a Course for Earth. Malloy, as soon as you have it, engage at full."

x

Gordon has never minded getting information from his Captain. "What about the seeds?"

"What about them?"

"Well, the hurricane, emergency supplies, Dr. Aranov's time machine?"

Mercer and Grayson exchange a second's glance and Mercer leans forward and says in a 'something wrong with your hearing?' tone. "Course. Earth. Full."

"Aye, aye Captain." He barely manages to filter the 'what the hell is going on?' from his tone. "Coming about."

The stars on the forward deck-to-overhead screen slow, shift left, continue for a moment into a half circle and then leap at them.

The silence lasts some fifteen seconds, then is ended by the speaker on the right armrest of his chair.

"LaMarr to bridge. Can't help but notice we've been here before."

Mercer touches the control beside the speaker. "Report to the Bridge."

If the Chief Engineer takes any note of the curtness of the order, he gives no sign of it. "On my way."

x

Mercer touches the button, looks to the blue uniformed woman beside him. "Might as well."

"Command says 'no'," she cautions.

"They're a good crew." He looks right and left to include all. "We'll need them."

The looks he gets back are of the 'here for you, sir' variety.

When John LaMarr steps onto the deck, Mercer looks to the red uniformed woman at the port side station. "Alara, seal the bridge. Deactivate all recording systems. And rig the ship for silent running. Until further notice," he says broadly, "there will be no communications outside the ship without my express order."

As the heavy doors slide shut behind them, he turns to the … he's never had a name for what the Kaylonian is. "Isaac, stop listening. Rather, keep listening but you will never reveal to anyone what I'm going to say."

"Yes, sir."

"That goes for everyone here. This is 'Top Secret, Need-to-Know-and-you-don't' stuff."

"You can count on us, sir," is a broken chorus of varied words.

x

"Back on Earth, well, on Luna Base Four, is a Summit so high it can only be held in space. Every Chief-of-State of every planet in the Union is there and only a selected number of people – plus those in this room – know exactly where and when. Secrecy is so strict that - no, never mind comparisons. Alara, what's the first rule of secrecy?"

"'A secret anyone knows is not a secret'."

"Suffice it to say, this secret is blown. Not 'broadcast on the planetary net' blown, but Command thinks someone is going to target the Conference. If word gets out that a plot is suspected, and there is credible evidence that _something_'_s_ up, it'll freak a couple thousand big wigs and Security will be ringing a loud bell right where silence was the preferred plan."

Bortus' gravelly voice asks "Then what is the plan?"

"The Admiralty realizes that if they try to reposition to get everyone off or even move ships to defend LB4, whoever is going to threaten it will know the jig is up and will probably switch to Plan B. I've never known a Plan B that didn't have casualties, maybe on both sides.

"Our Plan A is somewhat different. Command doesn't think that the Orville, this far out and heading toward uncharted territory on a three-month assignment to the nadir of the Galaxy, will be seen as having anything to do with the Conference.

"I want to come in at Emergency speed, get as close to LB4 as possible – Gordon, can you stop us on a dime a hundred meters from the base?"

"I can put us so close the guys down in level 9 will duck."

"Good." He looks to his right to the Chief Engineer. "John, how long until we get there at full speed?"

LaMarr's lips open, he has that answer but he's not the one in the Nav seat. He looks to the redheaded woman he'd recommended as his _eventual_ replacement, meets her eyes.

"Twenty-four hours, nineteen minutes," she glances back at her board, "twenty-one seconds. Ship's time 0853 Hours. Sir."

"Good."

Mercer passes on to the next point, thus misses the wink John gives to his successor.

x

"I want to appear there before anyone knows we're coming, weapons hot and loaded for bear. If all goes well, we'll evacuate the delegates and stick them on a battleship where they belonged. If it's not so great we'll pop in and blow something to shit."

"Sir," the Chief Engineer says, "don't we already have an Emergency mission? After all, Aronov's machine won't do much without the seeds."

"We'll be a few days late. They can get by on rations."

"But with all those ships –."

"That will be all, Commander."

"But –." If Mercer's glare could be loud... "Aye, sir."


	10. Drill

Chapter Ten  
Drill

"Lieutenant Kitan, draw from the Armory 20 PM-44s and issue them to the first 20 people you see, tell them to return to their quarters and await orders. Your Security forces are also to arm themselves."

"What's up?" is Gordon Malloy's unrequested query and the other officers see how little the interruption pleases the shipmaster, but he doesn't slap the pilot down, though to some it seems a near thing indeed.

"Battle simulation. We have been boarded by the Redcoats." There are smiles among those who understand the ancient reference. "The twenty random crew are the only ones who were not injured in the initial battle where the ship fell so they will have no one to help them. They must engage the enemy wherever they find them. Set all weapons to minimum, I want to knock them off their feet, not through bulkheads."

"Sounds great," Gordon says, getting into the moment. "Can I play?"

Mercer looks as though considering the question but the pilot did interrupt. "No. You're already dead. In fact, the whole bridge was taken out."

"Darn it. I was really looking forward to shooting it out."

"I'll shoot you myself."

"Um, no thanks."

"Go, Alara."

xx

In short order Kitan has assembled both her Security force, the aforementioned Redcoats, gathered them in the Launching Bay and given them their orders. She notes that there is a man who has been linked in her files with a woman from the Quartermaster's whom she'd been sure to give a weapon. The conscripted volunteers for now wait in their quarters for the alert to sound and for them to be the ship's sole defenders.

She hopes they shoot each other.

xxx

"Kitan to the Bridge," the woman calls over the communicator in the left sleeve of her black with red piping shirt. "Invasion force has landed and penetrated the ship's hull at Deck Five Shuttle Bay. It is dispersing to attack."

"Attention all Surviving Crew. The ship has been boarded on Deck Five. Repel bo –." He turns off the intercom and the ship's bright lights are reduced to one quarter, the corridors illuminated mostly by the Red Alert indicators in the bulkheads.

xx

The conflict, such as it is, is over in nineteen minutes. Final score: one attacker wounded, all twenty defenders dead.

"That was _Pa – thetic!_" Mercer announces. "Who was defending us anyway?"

"Seven civilians," Kitan says, "consisting of four scientists, two students and the schoolteacher and a corps of equally random crewmen."

This is outrageous. "We are charging into a possible enemy attack on Lunar Base 4, unless we are very lucky to make it before anything happens, and you give me school children to defend this ship?"

"You said the first twenty I see."

Mercer halts. That had been his order. "All right, collect the weapons. We'll do it again. And we'll keep doing it until we get it right. Commander," he looks to Grayson, "join me in my office. Let's review this last debacle and see if we can find a better strategy."

xx

Thirty seven minutes later the tally is different. This time none of the invading force is wounded and everybody on the bridge is relieved - for the moment - by the Captain's absence.

xx

A total of eight exercises are run and the grand total is disheartening: Seven invaders wounded over the course of the day shift, none killed while one hundred sixty defenders had been mowed down.

On the bridge Lt. Cmdr. Bortus is in the center starboard seat, but the interest is on the most recent concluded contest and the fact that the invading force had made short work of the defenders, much to the Captain's displeasure. He has ordered another round with changed 'volunteers'.

As they await Round 9 Gordon has his own summary of the day's exercises: "We're getting out asses handed to us."

"What can you expect?" Kitan challenges. "Civilians against my teams?"

"These people are the best the Union has to offer."

"Which is saying little enough."

"I'm feeling kind of disappointed," Louisa Sportelli admits. "I for one thought we could do better. The Captain is mad enough to chew neutronium. Did you see his face on that last ship wide, I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel."

"Letting that go for now," Gordon says, also wanting to let go of a very familiar, if accurate, reference, "I think we'd be lucky to get to Lunar Base 4 before we run out of crew."

"Amen."

"You know, I thought for sure yesterday that nothing could drag the Captain (he'll call his old friend 'the captain' until Sportelli proves herself one of the guys for the free-flowing banter that can be the norm aboard this bridge) anywhere near that Summit."

"Why?"

"A couple thousand Presidents, Regents, Prime Ministers, Kings, Queens and what have you spending a week talking about this, that and the other thing? It'll probably take a day just to get through the Opening Ceremonies. Talk about Pompous Circumstances. But he's actually enthusiastic to swing back, and like _this_: 'Loaded for bear', 'pop in and blow something to shit', I've never heard him talk like that."

"Perhaps," Bortus' voice cuts through, "you would prefer to find a course that will get the Captain there more directly."

"Yes, sir," he says and both officers lock their attentions on the boards before them. The ship is already flashing toward Earth in as near a straight line as is possible while avoiding cosmic detritus and other potential hazards. He recognizes the chastisement as Bortuseze for Mercer's more prosaic 'cut the crap'.

x

Kitan, at her usurped station, will report this exchange later.

It had been hoped, at least by the Dastarn, that the drills would distract the crew from considering the oddity of their mission and asking questions. She'd thought it was a shortsighted hope

xxx

"All right," Grayson doesn't quite confront her superior but in the privacy of his office after attack #9 but it's a near thing. "We've proven that Planetary Union people, with the exception of specially trained officers, can't fight for shit. We weren't planning on fighting any of them so what does all this prove?"

"Nothing. I'm keeping them too busy to question our plan."

xxx

And that ambition carried through over the next several hours. After Mercer called a halt to the 'pathetic claptrap' of defending the ship, the final three hours of Alpha shift dealt the crew another challenge. An explosion in Engineering caused a score of injuries ranging from concussive force to radiation poisoning which the crew had to deal with without the resources of Sick Bay.

In this the men and women of the Orville acquitted themselves better, as these are the sort of things that spacefarers are trained to contest with.

Mercer's declaration was that tomorrow there would be more assaults by hostile forces.

Perhaps he'd make it interesting and conflict the alien races as a whole against the human defenders. He doesn't care a whit that the pilot had organized a pool and that odds were running high against the non-humans.


	11. Suspicions

Chapter Eleven  
Suspicions

Crystal McGee, having spent Alpha and much of Beta Shifts with the goal of getting to know as well as possible as many crew persons and families as she can, her flock, while avoiding the battles raging on various decks of the massive starship, steps into the lounge. This, from where she can see of the diverse crowd, looks to be the place and the simplest way to meet the most people, especially when there's to be but one topic of most conversations. Rather than wandering the ship as she'd been doing, she could just stay here.

No, she can't. Beyond meeting people and having little taste for war games she had managed to avoid, she was also getting the lay of the land, or rather the ship. She's been to several floors - decks - and has determined to meet as many of the crew as was possible before she takes up the planning of her next stage, offering actual non-denominational Services as much as it is physically possible to prepare for before she takes on the non-human Faiths.

She has learned the essentials of the Holodeck from Crewwoman Patti Devlin and decided it will be much easier, and perhaps more impressive, to use that site rather than to move furniture in Mooska's Bar or this Lounge.

A look under the tables as she approaches a vacant one confirms this. While the chairs are not bolted to the deck as they are in Mooska's, the tables are.

Petty Officer Miguel Riviera had suggested the Launch Bay. She admits the background would be as impressive as he – _heck_ – until she gets used to looking out her own quarters or office windows, there is no way she will be comfortable enough to use the huge bay with that vista behind her. She must still fight her fear, hopefully diminishing, of being thrown out an air lock.

No, the Holodeck will be fine. Does she have to reserve the time? Good to check. Maybe she might be able to reserve an hour each Sunday morning at 1000, and then go by others as needed.

She'd been told by Lt. Vaolastorcugrky – Dann – at the Reception (and this time she hadn't felt an urge to scream) that he's the go-to officer for elevator music. Does he also schedule Holodeck time? She should have asked him. He'd seemed charming, though in a ninstrudle sort of way, but that would be convenient. She already has the names of 231 selections for Christmas music; that part had been easy, though she's determined there will be no red nosed reindeer or magic top hats on the day.

Maybe the Eve. She'll ask later.

x

She'll start small with the Services. She has no idea how many will come for more than the novelty. The Christmas / Easter participants have been a staple for two and a half millennia, she knows she'll never change it, and She begins her career here in hope.

'Her career here.' Did She actually think that this time? Yes? Well, maybe…. Hope?

x

She knows the day will come when she will succumb to temptation and offer Services in Notre Dame or the Chartres Cathedral (maybe for its 1200th Anniversary? She should look it up) or most likely of all standing where her eight time great-grandmother had stood as Bishop in the National Cathedral in Washington, America.

But this ship has known Time Travel, at least from outside in. She'd heard the story from Crewman Bill Parsons aboard the Tesla of Pria Levesque, one of the few actual stories she has of her new berth. Wouldn't it be something to do that, to somehow go back, to _meet_ the original Mother McGee?

'No,' she'd immediately decided. 'Dreams are one thing, fantasies another and fun, but if it happened I'd probably stand there like a cross-wired cyborg and really disappoint her about the prospects for her line.'

x

That is why she's in the bar cum lounge in search of a quiet spot in which to think through the events of the day, not to indulge herself in fantasies.

The chairs and tables, the latter bolted to the deck, are laid out in a simple pattern. Unlike Mooska's, while there is a well stocked bar along the long wall, food is synthesized at the device at the short wall and not served up by an enthusiastic host.

There are small tables set on a raised level and each before one of several windows for more intimate gatherings, but she'll work up the nerve to sit so close to rushing rainbows of galactic matter later.

She had limited herself to casual random encounters with the crew and families, recognizing from minute one that this self-appointed 'acquaintance quest' will take days at best. With a three-shift day, roughly one third of the people will be on duty at any particular hour, the second third will likely be asleep while the rest will be on their wind down evenings.

Should she pick a Shift for herself? Will she be assigned one or will the circumstances force one upon her? In plain English, does she even have a choice?

She has no assigned duties beyond those of her Calling and Appointment other than those she gives to herself, and is so glad that the ship is heading first to deliver seeds to an agricultural colony, then in a direction she continually thinks of as 'South' to parts very much unknown. It will be months before they encounter a known species or another Union ship.

It's exciting to think that in this day and age (shouldn't that be age and day?) there is still such need for pure exploration, and she can take her time to adjust and learn.

Yesterday she'd been a wreck, certain she was going to F up so badly that she would be put off the ship. But in chatting up Lt. Mara Dacaran, the Astrogator, she'd realized that not too long from now, at normal cruising speed, they would soon reach the point where there will be nowhere to put her off _to._ All she has to do is avoid messing up before that point and she'll be relatively secure.

Unless, of course, she F's up _so_ badly that they do blow her out an airlock.

x

'Brilliant, idiot. Spend,' she searches out, finds the chronometer on the wall, 'ten and a half hours convincing yourself everything will be fine, then muck it up before you sit down.'

She does sit down, feeling not at all as good as when she'd entered the lounge, but she does take a very useful lesson from Trinity Seminary and closes her eyes, tilts her head back until the overhead light is brightest and replays the time she'd spent in the ship's Schoolroom.

There are two classes of children, of students on this ship, the adolescents and the very young, 4 to 6 years old and the latter was the one she'd visited, breaking her own rule not to intrude on 'on duty' personnel. The room was filled with young people from six different planets, but today, though introduced, she'd placed only one, Topa, Lt. Cmdr. Bortus' young man.

The pre-noon is devoted to the youngest, before their active minds can wander in every direction of the spherical compass. She'd introduced herself to the teacher, Mr. Javier Cassius, but said she hadn't wanted to intrude on the class.

He'd turned it around and introduced her to the boys and girls and, knowing she could hardly have a presentation ready for their young minds, though she had decided she would speak to him in due time about Religious education, asked them if they had any questions.

One little girl, perhaps no more than five, had raised her hand more quickly and higher than her fellows, and had asked "What's a Chapman?"

Fifty minutes and perhaps eighty questions later she'd managed to come up for air.

She'd asked Mr. Cassius about coming back, got a deafening affirmative before the man could open his mouth and made a graceful exit, determined to review every lesson she'd ever learned all the way back to St. Alphonsus.

x

Opening her eyes, feeling much better, she sees Lieutenants Alara Kitan and Gordon Malloy seated in profile to her a few tables away and determines she is _not_ going to intrude, not when seeing how he holds both her hands in his.

They're out of uniform - it must be later than she'd realized - he in a blue shirt and she in a yellow blouse embroidered with what are probably Xelayan symbols or words, together with a blue skirt she's sure must be within the bounds of regulations - somewhere. The gift he'd given her, the 'tal-med', flashes its tiny colors at her throat.

They both seem quite focused on solitude in the quarter filled room, so she stands up and continues her path.

xxx

On the bridge the Beta Shift crew have replaced their Alpha counterparts. Ensign Sportelli, consigned to alternate double shifts with the Gamma Shift Navigator for the foreseeable future, has stayed in her post next to Beta Shift Pilot Ens. Joe Klugmann's left while the other officers had switched.

The ship is headed for Earth at the top speed of its Quantum Drive and unless the Captain decides to hold another series of drills not much is going to change in the next 16 hours.

"Any idea what's up?" Klugmann asks.

Officer of the Watch Lieutenant Carl M'Goya looks up high from his center starboard chair. "Shielded port they used to call a 'Sun roof', stars and loads of stellar detritus making some very pretty rainbow streaks, some distant stars I could pass the time creating new constellations from."

"Serves me right. I was thinking more why the mad dash back to Earth."

"I'm not mad." He looks right to Mark Rosen at Environmental. "You mad?"

"Nope."

"Well, all I know," Klugmann counters, "is that when I went off duty at zero we were on our way to Catonis II on what I thought was an emergency and I come back and we've done a 163 stroke 137 and are headed for Earth. Luna, actually."

"The day we're privy to anything big…." Peter Belknap, the Communications Officer, leaves it hanging for M'Goya to pick up. If anyone is up to date on things it would be the shift boss but

"Don't look at me. Captain didn't say a word so I'm assuming it's beyond my pay grade."

"You know what happens when you 'assume'," Rosen says.

"'You make an ass of you and me', yeah, but by what I saw the Captain was pissed about something, and I'm perfectly content not to set him off. What's our ETA?"

"0853," Sportelli says.

"Then it's not our problem until the old man says it is."

x

"So," M'Goya asks his team, "how many died today?" to which the pilot and communications officer raise their hands. "How was it?"

"A headache," Klugmann gripes, surprising most with the depth of his feeling.

"How so?"

"I caught sight of Ben Joswig, one of the Security / Boarder guys coming down the corridor but he didn't see me. I was all set to get the drop on him when Sara Genuardi came up behind me and gave me two to the back of the head."

"Should'na stood her up last week," Louisa chides.

"I didn't stand her up, I had to work a double and I was exhausted."

"So you say." Louisa has worked her share of doubles and then some opposite Klugmann but isn't inclined to use it for any gain. This is the start of her Official shift rather than the split of her 16 hours, something she would not have had to do had Chief LaMarr been able to spend any time up here.

x

Normally the off shifts have little to do, all the excitement seems to happen during Alpha. But then, when things do get dicey it's usually Mercer and the A Team that get called in anyway.

No, that's not fair. Only in extreme situations does Mercer call in the Alpha Shift. Usually the B team can handle the unexpected, but that's always the Captain's call.

She hopes it doesn't happen this evening. The Captain seems to have a bug on.

In fact, and it has to be the tensions of their somewhat clandestine mission, she might think of the old man's behavior as erratic – if she weren't holding on for that much coveted Promotion.

A score of doubles are worth that.

x

"Mr. Belknap?"

"I don't even know who got me, Cappy. I rounded a corner and came face to PMs with Marty Tate and Lou Holder and they both opened up on me. I thought we were only supposed to be shot once."

"No promises."

"What about you?"

"I wasn't selected."

Not for anything will M'Goya admit his untimely and extremely uncomfortable demise came because he'd dropped his guard with the lovely and delectable Maya Sanchez. She'd lowered her weapon, gave him an enthusiastic hug which he'd returned as emphatically, gave him a passionate kiss he'd responded to with equal ardor and then had nearly changed his singing voice from baritone to soprano.

x

"So, what's for this evening?"

"Twentieth Century," Rosen calls out.

"Low Tech," is Klugmann's vote, ignoring that the first choice of milieu pretty much guarantees the latter. Columns of tiny words appear on the deck to overhead screen, too numerous and tiny to read.

"Flying," is Belknap's selection and most of the words disappear, the others moving to fill the space but still too many to discern.

"Rescues," Paul Darrow at Life Sciences wants. Still hundreds more words vanish, the remainder now large enough to read.

"_Hunks_!" is Sportelli's emphatic selection.

'Figures,' M'Goya thinks, but he won't hold the choice against her. There are still in excess of sixty selections and he studies the list, makes his choice.

It commences with greyscale footage of an ancient two person air ship with clear spherical chamber for the crew, a long framework to the rear of the ship and its steadying propeller plus a huge one above to provide lift. The airship is seen from multiple angles, always in flight.

The music is stirring, promising exciting activity. A circle appears in the center of the screen into which a single word approaches, stops and proclaims 'WHIRLYBIRDS', followed immediately by the names Kenneth TOBEY and Craig HILL.

As the activity begins, all in gray scale, Darrow inquires "How old is this thing?"

"1958," Belknap replies, having checked the data at his board.

"462 years."

"You can choose the next one," M'Goya promises.

"In color."

"_Hush_!" is Sportelli's final word.

xxx

"Chaplain's Log, December 23, 2420. I couldn't resist," Crystal says at her living room desk, or so she's begun to think of it. There's something about the passing star stuff, the Doppler rainbows that relaxes one. 'If I'm not careful, I'll drift off out here.'

"I went down to the Holodeck and made my choice for tomorrow. I can access, create, almost all of the grand and most impressive churches and cathedrals in history (Earth history for now), and after thirty or forty choices I made the perfect selection for my first Eucharist on Orville.

"Okay, I gave in to temptation. I'm sure He'll forgive me. I said Evening Prayer there with the Angels and Saints.

"You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather when I asked for a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer and the Holodeck gave them to me.

"They vanished when everything else did of course, but for that time … it was pretty darn impressive."

x

She turns the recording off and for the first time has no thought to delete it.

xxx

Kitan, hours later and in the yellow blouse and blue skirt she'd worn since change of shift, has finished checking the systems she and her 'associates' have made to ensure that no one can change the ship's heading or arrival time. Satisfied that she at least has been diligent, she makes her way along the main deck to her quarters behind the Bridge, occupied now by the Gamma Shift officers. It's an hour into the night shift and Ens. R. J. Mace occupies her station, but she has no desire to see him. She's within a meter of the door when "Hi, Alara" from behind halts her. She turns to the green jacketed redhead.

"Yes, hello." The woman doesn't look familiar, she's sure she hasn't seen this face on any of the briefing files.

"How was your day?"

There's something in her tone that Kitan doesn't like, as though the woman already knows the answer. "Eh, okay."

"Looked pretty okay a few hours ago," the intrusive jelnazi, seemingly close to her own age and far too cheery for this hour, says with a smile that says too much and not enough.

"Ah, it was okay. How was yours?"

"Fine. Better than I'd thought it would be. The School kids were marvelous."

'She's a teacher, that explains the open book as her Division badge and why wasn't I _informed_?' "Great."

"I saw you and Lt. Malloy earlier in the lounge. I didn't want to come over and intrude. You looked a lot happier."

"Of _course,_ we're happy."

"And I see you're a lot more comfortable wearing the tal-med."

"Huh?" Kitan touches one flickering end with her fingertips. After her dinner with the pilot she hadn't taken it off - what difference does the idiot Security Chief's reputation mean to her, especially now? - but she should have been more alert to her surroundings, such as this nosy kirchatz. "Well… why wouldn't I be?"

"I'm sorry, but when Lieutenant Malloy gave it to you, you said you were very uncomfortable about the message it sent, that you would never wear it again in public, then when I saw you in the lounge –"

"I changed my mind," Kitan cuts in hurriedly. She looks fore and aft along the corridor but it's too long an unbroken path and there are a few crewmen and -women visible, each going about his or her business.

x

Crystal is unsure. Alara seems very distracted, talks in starts and doesn't meet her eyes, but then the Xelayan asks

"Would you like to come inside? I'd like to talk to you."

'Oh, it's more about Lt. Malloy. Of course.' "Sure."

Alara leads her inside and Crystal focuses on a brief prayer that God will open her mind and heart and give her the words to say, and when the portal closes the Security Chief crosses the room to the Synthesizer nitch. "Two Sicaran Sunbursts."

When she returns with the glasses, half filled with red liquid, Crystal looks at them but makes no move to take either. "Is that alcohol?"

"Guaranteed to knock you on your ass before you finish the first glass, and an endless supply to follow," Kitan assures her, handing her one. "Drink up. Time to discuss guys."

"Alara, I told you yesterday I don't touch alcohol; that even the Communion wine is unfermen–."

Kitan grabs her by the green jacket and both glasses fly outward, their contents splattering as she yanks Crystal off her feet into a spin that has her pinwheel level with the deck. Crystal's startled scream jumps to a shriek as Kitan flings her across the room and it's cut by her cataclysmic crash against the bulkhead beside the wide monitor.

She neither feels herself crash into the steel wall nor slam face up upon the deck.


	12. Plans of Mice and Men

Chapter Twelve  
Plans of Mice and Men

The yellow and blue clad Security Chief stands over the green jacketed harridan who lies on her back upon the carpet, her disheveled fiery locks hiding much of her face and the Xelayan fights to restrain herself. One kick to the head will drive fractured skull through brain; one moderate stomp to the thoracic cavity will drive shattered ribs through heart, lungs, whatever. Or perhaps it'll be more fun to turn the termagant over, slam her fist through the back of her neck and sever the spinal column, leave the inconvenient firsnak alive but a quadriplegic.

Yes, alive but paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of her life, suitable punishment for her interference.

But no, that pisvaq Finn could probably put her back together. Better a quick but messy death. No one, nothing, can raise the dead.

x

No, she'd better let the others know. The Dastarn will decide, and if he makes the correct decision a sanctioned death is still a death.

She crosses the room to the Security Chief's – _her_ – desk, where under some papers she'd secreted lengths of rope left over from dealing with the other prisoners and shoves the coil into her back pocket. She'd much rather wrap a length of it around this kzatch's neck and pull until either the vrinzk is dead or the rope breaks.

But delightful as this speculation is, she must report. It's past 0040 of course, but what care has she for that? If the man is asleep it'll be that much more satisfying in waking him. She activates the co link sewn into her uniform's black sleeve. "Alara Kitan to Captain Mercer and Commander Grayson."

"Go ahead," the Dastarn's voice responds a moment later. No, he doesn't sound freshly awakened. Too bad.

"I need you in my quarters." She decides it's very good that she had summoned both her partners, recalling last evening when the man had been (somewhat) alone with the blonde First Officer immediately following her capture.

Granted they'd helped with positioning and holding the battered woman, though she'd been an easy conquest, but if their leader ever forgets the distinctive aspects of a Xelayan, she'll be happy to remind him.

xx

It's less than four minutes spent standing over the body with mounting impatience, thinking of the many ways to kill the kanstat who had complicated her duty while she looks for signs of life, longing for the excuse to snuff it out. She would be the preserver of the mission, but knows she won't have the chance. Mercer is going to want her alive for interrogation.

_Damn_ this _Bitch_!

She grabs the blinking device that had so ruined her plans, aggravated that the idiot pilot had suggested she wear it for their 'date' (what a disgusting idea, _dating_ a weakling human, but she'd had to go along with it), opens it by the hinge under her hair and flings it spinning across the room.

Metal though it is, it is pounded out of true against the bulkhead, flattened on one side upon impact.

How could that stupid hngrat wear such a thing in public and why would her supposed boyfriend put the message about her out there for anyone to read?

Humans are Perverted.

x

_Finally, _the annunciator sounds and she stalks, stiff with frustration, to the locked door, stabs the button on the panel beside it. She'd snatched a database as she'd started over, though she doesn't trust this Union device any more than she trusts her 'fearless leader'.

It is, after all, only the idiocy of P.U. hierarchy that inflicted him on them.

She'd left the body where it lies supine upon the deck, so the door is barely closed behind them when Mercer sees the green jacketed woman face up on the deck between wall and couch, though her red hair obscures her features, and demands "What is this zarg?"

"She almost figured it out."

x

Mercer stalks to the body, flings her long red hair from her face. "Who is _this_?"

"I think she's the Schoolteacher." The Open Book emblem on the bitch's embroidered green and white circular Division patch had been an obvious clue that the idiot Dastarn should have picked up. The hint is as obvious as a smack on the face and she'd enjoy that.

"The Schoolteacher's a man."

"Then I don't know."

Outrage mingled with incredulity make him straighten and turn. "You don't _Know_?"

"She's not in our records," Kitan insists, displaying the datapad.

Mercer steps up to her, halts when he towers over her from inches away. "Find _out_."

"I say we should kill her, put her with the others."

"A Union Lieutenant," such being obvious to anyone, therefore to a grelznik like him, "and you would kill her without having any idea _who_ she is, what she does or who'll miss her when!" Mercer raises his open right hand above his left shoulder.

"Try it and I'll start with that hand and crush every bone in your body."

Seething, face already red and surging to purple, Mercer lowers his hand. "This Operation was planned to the minute." He points to the device in her hand, his finger trembling in his rage. "We were given every detail there is on the Orville and her crew. How can we have an Unknown?" He shifts glares from Kitan to Grayson and back again. "_FIND_ HER!"

xx

It's Grayson who pulls up the record from the desk computer. "Yesterday the ship picked up four new crewmen; Engineer, Botanist, Astrophysicist and Chaplain."

"Chaplain? What the _miz_ is a 'chaplain'?"

Grayson shrugs. Kitan points to the unconscious woman at their feet. The other disciplines use colored round patches on their uniforms that the trio know, this one wears the green embroidered outline of an open book. "Her?"

"Doesn't matter," Mercer decides. "We have four, three now, Unknowns out there and nothing we can do. The Engineer could be a problem and we know nothing about any of them, and couldn't do anything if we did. We're down for the Captain, First Officer and Security Chief; that _should've_ been enough."

"Thank you, 'Captain'," Kitan gripes, "for that insightful glimpse into the bloody obvious."

"If I could replace you…."

Kitan barks a laugh. "Yeah you would, but you've got only _one_ Xelayan and believe me, I'd be missed at Grand Base before either of you."

xxx

The trio had transported their doppelgangers during the previous Gamma shift to a Hold in the lower-most section of the ship, but this is now entering the second hour of the _next_ Gamma and it's correspondingly more crowded as a third of the crew winds down from duty while a smaller number is at their places.

Kitan carries their green jacketed prisoner along the corridors to the nearest elevator while Mercer and Grayson precede and follow the quickly walking Security Chief, and if anyone had seen them then they were taking an injured Crew-woman to Sick Bay.

This story might have lost all veracity when, in going closely around a corner, the Xelayan takes the turn too closely and the woman's head collides with the bulkhead with a thump that is heard for meters.

x

Grayson, following them, had winced at the impact. "Be careful," she whispers, her words biting.

"Why?" Kitan shoots back at normal volume. "We're killing them all in seven hours and the universe will be a better place with them gone."

"Well right now we can't risk blowing our cover," Grayson cuts back with still lowered voice. "We're not ready to fight a whole shipload."

"_You're_ not ready. Bring them on, singly or in a mob."

"Well, I don't want to draw attention, and disposing of random crewmen and -women is the best way to do that."

"_Enough_! Both of you Shut Up."

But they reach the elevator unobserved and unhindered. The car speakers drop down upon their heads a male rendition of something that gives greater emphasis to the words 'Oh, Holy Night' and something about the perception of stars, but this is a meaningless conjunction of verbal and orchestral notes.

xx

In Cargo Bay 2, packed with seven hundred large plastic crates which fill all but the forward ten feet and then from wall to wall, Ed Mercer, Kelly Grayson and Alara Kitan lie upon the deck.

Ed has managed to work his body to where he can sit up with his back to the crates so that he may face the wide doors.

To his right and two meters away Kelly lies naked and his first sight of her hours before had filled him with apocalyptic rage. The bruises and swelling that darken her face, the blood from her mouth and nose lining her face in multiple directions, had lit the inferno that has not diminished.

Unfortunately, little can be done, for they are bound by tight ropes, their ankles trussed and their arms tied behind them, bent so their hands are secured to their elbows and twisted upward holding those joints.

Alara, somewhat to his left, is bound in the same manner but not with ropes. Chains bind her with links of two inch thick duranium. The chain is designed for towing heavy machinery across a planet's surface and from the woman's determined though ineffectual struggles it's quite capable of overcoming even an enraged Xelayan's tremendous strength.

She'd worked so hard and long, quite evidently hurting herself in the process, that he'd finally instructed the woman to stop and to conserve her strength. But only her failure had made her comply, and that with little grace and a determination to come to grips with that other Xelayan in a rematch of cataclysmic proportions.

Unfortunately, in the hours which feel like much of a full day since they'd awoken to captivity and the sharing of little enough information, they'd been left alone and uninformed.

Now the large storage bay doors slide apart.

x

It is a difficult thing indeed to watch yourself enter the Cargo Bay, uniformed in proper attire, with absolutely nothing else as it should be. The captive man and women watch their mirror images, the invaders, with what private thoughts must remain secret, and yet they have an additional concern, for the fake Alara carries in her arms a green and black uniformed woman who lies slumped and still. Alive?

No one questions who their fellow prisoner is, for though there are many women in Sciences, only one sports such a conflagration of hair.

Not-Alara steps into the vacant area in the middle of the captive officers, lifts the woman and _drops_ her on the deck with a wince-inducing bang.

x

"It's about time you three showed up." Despite his sympathy for the woman who had probably gotten deep into the unimaginable, Ed has to focus on the moment. They might not have many of them. "Now what do you want?" he demands as Alara's twin pulls lengths of rope from her rear pocket. He'd watched as she'd entered and if he'd ever needed confirmation that the woman is another Xelayan – he hadn't needed any since hearing the details of Alara's capture – his doubts had long ago bern removed. She'd handled the unconscious – thank God not dead – woman with all the effort needed to hold a length of rags.

But the Captain's outrage at this situation is nothing compared to that of the naked, bruised and bloody woman laying upon the deck, and his twin turns a too-explicit look at the bound blonde.

"You bastard," is unsatisfying but Kelly's words carry far more venom.

"…when I get out of these," Kelly swears when her first deluge of vitriol winds down, the blood and darkened bruises forming a mask of vengeance, "I'll make certain you'll never be able to do this to another woman."

The man looks at the blonde woman who'd entered with him, a chilling copy of the ship's real First Officer. Both women watch the unhidden thoughts in the man's face and Kelly has confirmation of her belief that she had been a brutalized substitute. "I see now. You can't touch her," she finishes with a mocking sneer, driving home the thought of impotence.

"But I touched you." He bends over her, close enough to touch. "And you're never getting out of those ropes, gonna die in them. Though I could indulge us both before this mission is over."

x

This is getting no one anywhere, and outraged though Ed is there is more to do than to plot revenge. He hopes that he can take part in said vengeance but now he needs to know "What mission?"

Mercer looks to his bound twin. "Oh, I'm not the villain of the ancient AV shows who reveals his dastardly plans to the helpless non-hero."

"Why not?" Grayson asks as she comes down on the balls of her feet beside her nude and brutalized doppelganger. "Could be fun when they realize how helpless they are."

She laughs, looking down and up the length of Kelly's body. "You know, I can see what they both see in you. Sorry, though, to leave you down on the cold deck." She flicks a fingernail on Kelly's right nipple, erect in the chill.

"What plan?" Kelly demands through gritted teeth. That pain had been sharp.

"At a little after eight all those Kings, Presidents, Prime Ministers and what-have-you are going to get a 'Christmas Eve' surprise they're really going to hate." She's heard about this 'Christmas' thing from too many of the crew to give a kritchju what it is, just that it's the last thing those idiots will ever celebrate. "They're aboard Luna Base 4 and this morning we're gonna hit it so fast the impact and explosion could split the planetoid in two.

"Full speed. _Splat_. The irresistible force and the immovable object question will be answered for all time. You just won't see it."

"And when the dust clears," Kitan says, straightening to her feet from binding the green uniformed woman as the others are tied, forearms horizontal behind back and hands to elbows, ankles tied so tightly they would make her lose her feet if she were going to live long enough, but they're over an hour into Gamma shift, "and they discover that the Krill have taken hundreds of worlds' leaders out and reduced your Union to temporary chaos, at least half your worlds will fall within a month."

"Wait," Ed demands, glaring upward and studying the face he normally sees in his mirror, "you're Krill?"

Mercer rams his foot into Ed's stomach, though the bound man grits his teeth to silence the pain. "How'd they put someone so _Stupid_ in command of a Starship? No, we are not animals, but the evidence your people will find will send you off on a false fight while we dismantle you piece by piece until we're finally ready to smash you."

Ed hadn't cared about playing ignorant, even stupid if it would keep their captors talking, but he senses their time may well be running out. His twin had said 'no information' but he appears to have little effective control over his subordinates. This can be good on many levels.

"Such a pity," Kitan sneers, "you and your people will be the first to die and will not see the glory."

"Nor will you, not with this Kamikaze plan."

"Don't be naive," the red uniformed woman taunts, but before she can say more –

"Enough of this," Mercer bites. "We've been out of sight for too long." He herds the women out, saying before the door closes "I'd tell you to enjoy the fireworks, but you won't."

The doors slide shut.

x

"Well, I'd like to have known how they plan to get off," Ed says.

"Maybe she knows something," Alara says, glancing at the still unconscious woman between them.

xx

Outside the Hold, Mercer must snap at the women twice before they turn, before they give him any attention.

"Filter through the ship, make sure no one has any suspicions. You," he looks to Grayson, "come with me."

"It's the middle of the night. Only 19% of the crew is on 'Night Watch', and they don't have a wrintiz clue what's happening," Grayson snaps back. "We have been up and working for a Solar day, and if we're going to be alert and sharp come Alpha Shift, we should be in bed like our counterparts would be."

"The more we do _anything_ they wouldn't do," Kitan bites, "the more we risk alerting someone's attention."

Dastarn Mercer steps so close to the petite Xelayan's face that she must lean back to focus. "ASSESS THE SITUATION AND REPORT."

"Aayyee, aayyee," comes slowly from her mouth, but her eyes, her whole body carries her thoughts. "Sss i r."

They walk away from the man. Though Grayson had been told to accompany Mercer this is of greater importance. She keeps her voice quiet. "We can't be seen to oppose each other. It will blow our cover."

"The man's –"

"Your Dastarn, if you want to live."

"_Grayson_!" explodes from up the corridor.


	13. SitRep

Chapter Thirteen  
SitRep

Crystal wakes slowly with more pain than she can remember having ever suffered at any one time. Last time she'd awoken she'd only had to adjust to a strange bedroom, and once she'd remembered how she'd gotten there she could go into her morning Prayers, Contemplation and other usual details and ablutions.

Now she forces her eyes open to discover she has far more reasons for prayer, and meditation on the last day's events (how long ago?) is not going to help her.

The room is dimmer than she remembers the ship to be, and from her view of the ceiling it must be nearly cavernous. She can't distinguish much lying upon the floor but with the pain of her arms tied behind her and her ankles even more tightly bound she can see nothing but a ten foot wide, twenty foot long space, the rest (how much?) stacked high with large and quite probably heavy plastic boxes and the floor is freaping hard.

In the pain which is so bad she's forced the rest of the way to wakefulness, she looks left and sees, while somewhat more urgent prayers fill her mind, that she's not alone.

Captain Ed Mercer lies two meters away, seated against the pseudo-wall of crates, trussed with feet together and arms behind him on the cold (she assumes his section is because hers is freezing) deck.

Kelly Grayson lies on her side a meter above her head so she must look up to see that the First Officer is also bound, ankles together and her arms probably crossed as high behind her back as hers are, but unlike the Captain she's naked.

'She must _really_ be cold,' Crystal thinks, and is sure she can wait for answers for this one.

x

She looks down past her feet and there's Alara, but she's chained while they three are roped and the metal links that bind her ankles are thick enough to tow a ship on the ground. Crystal has never imagined anything so formidable used to hold a woman.

Now she has greatly more reason to pray, and does so with great fervency if brevity before she can speak.

"What happened?" rasps in her throat and she tries to swallow what moisture she has and believes she's not going to get more. 'All right, it's trite, clichéd and hackneyed but I really wanna know.'

"What do you remember?" Mercer, on her left, counters.

"A lot of pain." 'Okay, honest, concise but not the most helpful report I can give my Captain.' "I was talking to Alara … I'm guessing she was not Alara."

"Good guess," the chained Xelayan says with little bon homie.

"Okay, well I was talking to not-Alara in her quarters. She grabbed me, literally spun me about in mid-air, threw me across the room. I hit, I suppose, the bulkhead."

"Must have felt like getting hit by a truck," Mercer summarizes with a measure of sympathy.

"I've _been_ hit by a truck. This is worse."

"Some of that's probably from the fake Alara dropping you on the deck when they brought you in."

"Oh –" The word she bites off wouldn't do credit to her image or reputation any more than it would change a blessed thing.

x

"Specifics, Reverend. We've been here since I called 'Secure from General Quarters'."

"Well, that was last night, 'Gamma' shift?" He nods. "'Not-Alara' decked me, literally, in her quarters toward the end of Beta. I think it must have been after 2320, probably a lot after. I don't know anything after that."

'Aw, heck, it's Christmas _Eve_.'

x

"A day or better. Why did she attack you?"

"Well, she was…." She strains, from lying on her side, to sit up to face him and the hugely chained Xelayan, and she's relieved that the move puts Kelly behind her. It's not that she has anything against nudity per se, but with the bruises and dried blood on the First Officer's face this is going to be a really unpleasant tale. "I was going around the ship, getting acquainted and lost all track of time. I noticed her at dinner in the mess hall, the lounge rather, she was eating with Lieutenant Malloy and was quite comfortable wearing that Talmed."

"_Huh_!" This from Alara and carries several different flavors of offense.

"We met quite a while later, I commented that she seemed to like it, the talmed, and she gave me a 'why shouldn't I?' I was stupid enough to mention the reason." The expression on Alara's face is a reminder, or a warning, not to mention that reason here.

x

"She invited me to her quarters for a 'night cap', wanted to talk. Looking back, I see she probably wanted to pump me but she started out by offering me a drink, which I suspect was probably drugged."

"That's how the other Kelly took me out," Ed interjects.

Crystal continues her narrative with the chained Officer. "You know how I am with alcohol. I reminded you and in the next instant I'm sailing through the air and denting the bulkhead."

x

"Do you know anything about what's happening out there?" Mercer asks, not having much hope.

"Only that we're headed to a planet to deliver grain."

"Are you sure? Are you positive we're still on course?" He's not surprised by her expression and suspects that a significant number of the crew are unaware of the change in course. They would believe that they are still on course for Catonis II (those who may know even that much) when he knows they're heading back to Earth.

The next 'General Briefing', a practice started less than three months ago, is scheduled for four days hence, after the Christmas holiday and so he's not distressed by her quiet admission.

"Um… no."

x

They're quiet for a long moment. Crystal thinks they're integrating her measly information into their body of knowledge. She's sure that they know far more than she does and in the quiet she pivots around and whispers as softly as she can away from the others: "Commander? If it's none of my business…."

She's run out of words, tries… prays… to keep the blush from her face. Kelly, however, has never been a Shrinking Violet.

"The fake Ed raped me."

"_Oh my God_," is quiet yet louder than she'd wanted it to be. "I…. Can…? Do…?"

She glances back to discover with greater shame still that the real Ed Mercer is looking at her.

"Yes," Kelly declares, pulling her forward again. "I want to talk with you - a _lot_ \- later."

"Of course." 'Talk of timing - and my frigging big mouth.'

Right now, none of them can be sure there will _be_ a later.

x

"But we've been out of commission for a full day," the Captain concludes, "and yet these fake Mercer, Grayson and Kitan haven't taken anyone else." Crystal can't keep a flash of her thought from her expression and darn it but he saw it. "You and the others probably don't appear in their plans, and that gives us an advantage."

"More than that," Kelly counters. "No matter how well briefed those people are, they can't fool those who know us for very long. Kitan messed up twice," her look takes in the real one in her chains, "because they didn't know about Gordon's gift to you," she looks to Crystal, "or about your conversations."

"My bet is with Gordon," Mercer declares. "No matter how well they researched us, they'd fall down first on the personal stuff."

"And meantime," Crystal says, "I could get you two loose."


	14. Full Speed Ahead

Chapter Fourteen  
Full Speed Ahead

Lieutenant George Saunders is somewhat surprised when the Captain and First Officer walk through the entrance to Engineering. If one had come, he would have called the moment expected, but both had been more than he would have anticipated. As the new man, he had not been surprised to be told, at the end of Alpha Shift, that he would assume command of Gamma. This is a clear test of so many things that he feels he could reasonably expect anything from a mechanical breakdown to a domestic squabble, but he has his self-image to consider so he won't blink when the ship's CO and XO walk in and Mercer comes directly to him and not to the other three Engineers.

"There's a crisis on Earth. We need to get there now."

Thus it begins. Well…. "Sir, the ship is already running at maximum velocity."

"We need to get there faster. Lives are at stake. Crank it up all the way."

"Sir, I'm too new at these systems to know if there are any non-standard improvements that would affect us, something I'm not – Sir, I should check with Chief Engineer LaMa –"

"I'm not talking to the Chief Engineer; I'm talking to you."

"Sir, the safeties –"

Mercer's face darkens. "Screw the safeties, Mister. I'm telling you we have to move faster."

"Sir, I believe I could push us up to the red line for an hour, no more. By then, I can have Lt. Cmdr. LaMarr here and I'm certain he can get you what you need."

x

Mercer grabs his arm hard and four inches separate their faces. "Screw safeties, screw red line and screw LaMarr. I don't care if we all suffer radiation poisoning or whatever, you get that system up and you get it up now."

Eyes locked to eyes; Saunders says what he's sure Mercer wants to hear. "No, sir."

"_No_?" The grip tightens and Saunders wonders if he guessed wrong.

"That much power risks the safety of the crew. You can Court Martial me for disobeying Orders but no, I won't do that."

The PM-44 he hadn't noticed is at his head.

x

"CAPTAIN!" is Grayson's shout and it mingles with four other cries of distress. George is too stunned and thus no one moves –

Until the First Officer comes up beside the pair. "Well done, Lieutenant." Mercer slowly withdraws but his expression, his red face, are not those of an actor coming off a scene, no matter how intense. "You made the right call; the safety of the crew is always paramount." She smiles. "And don't worry, the 44 is uncharged."

Mercer reholsters the weapon, takes and exhausts a deep breath. "Well done."

But then, without a word, he turns and stalks out and Grayson follows.

x

"Shuoi," Ensign Grevs breathes. "I only got a cascade failure of the life support."

Saunders is not sure what to say. He had seen the weapon as it was reholstered.

It was not unpowered.

xx

Ten steps away, Grayson whirls on Mercer. "What the _Farginas_ was that?"

"We're taking too long," the Dastarn snaps.

"We have hours to go. We dare not blow our covers and you –" His fist crashes into her left cheek hard enough to stagger her. She catches herself against the bulkhead and pushes off. No one was there to see the strike, but if she hits back and someone comes around a corner...

She wipes blood from the edge of her lips and sees it smeared on the side of her index finger and hand and fixes her Dastarn with her hardest glare. "We'll _settle_ this."

"If this mission fails, _Vinclis_," he grates, emphasizing her lower rank, "no matter how many Zarlani you've bedded, not one of them will raise a hand to save you."

"I won't need them. Failure starts at the top."

xxx

Crystal hadn't intended to silence the room, but such is the effect upon her new crew mates who sit or lie staring at her after she'd said 'and meantime I could get you two loose.'

"What?"

"I'm sorry I mean I didn't think I mean I forgot that is when I left she I mean my sister I forgot abou –."

"_Reverend_!" he barks, leaving her wide eyed and mute. "Back up, take a deep breath and tell us."

She manages to obey the explicit directions; they don't ease her shame or distress but she can talk through those. "When I left Earth, my family threw a 'going away party' and my sister gave me an engraved compact, not exactly a compact actually, more like a mini travel set; base, blush, rouge, masc–"

"_Lieutenant_!"

"It also contains mini-scissors, clippers, nail file –"

"And you have it on you."

"Yes, Captain, it's as much a keepsake as a … well, it's in my jacket pocket," she finishes with a glance down to her left.

She lays down upon the deck, works her way with shoulders and heels toward Kelly, who also lays back but rolls away so that she will be able to reach into the jacket pocket.

By judicious rolls and turns the two women, arms secured behind their backs with wrists bound to elbows, are able to remove from Crystal's pocket a five-inch golden metallic disk. Then, back to back, Kelly securing her grip on the disk while Crystal removes, one handed, a nail file and a tiny pair of scissors from the flat base, manages not to drop either small tool and passes the file to Kelly.

The instruments are small, the ropes thick and strong, but they do not count the time as they labor at each other's ties with much wincing, sharp intakes of breath and whispered apologies.

x

Kelly is ultimately freed and, disdaining freeing her feet, rolls over, takes the scissors and attacks with élan her rescuer's bonds.

In time both are free and when they stand the first thing Crystal does is to unzip and strip off her uniform jacket and hand it to her naked Commander.

"You look good in green," Mercer quips.

"Green top and blue skirt," she counters, "as soon as we get those off."

x

So saying, the women attack the man's restraints. In short order all three are free. Ed removes his blue jacket; Kelly wraps the sleeves about her hips and ties the ends at her right.

Crystal retrieves from the deck the tools from her round compact, slips the small scissors and file into slots in the base, then reaches out to Kelly to restore the device to the pocket of her jacket.

Kelly catches a glimpse at the engraved lid before the case is gone. '_Don't neglect the girly girl'. _"Thank you."

"You okay?" Ed asks.

Kelly pats the bound sleeves at her otherwise bare hip. "You haven't held me here so snugly in years."

Crystal looks down and away and Kelly decides the priest doesn't need any blush from the device.

x

"I don't want to sound like a party pooper," Alara declares, flexing her muscles constrained by the thick steel links, "but those things are going to do absolutely nothing for these."

"No worries," Crystal says, riding a wave of optimism and trying to do anything she may to dispel the image the two senior officers had sparked. "We'll pick the locks."

"Do a lot of lock-picking, Reverend?" Ed inquires.

"Well, uh," she meets Kelly's eyes, anyplace but her Captain's and feels her hot face grow redder. "Actually… ah… no." She shrinks from the Executive Officer's 'then why bring it up?' look. "I was hoping you'd know."

x

"I have an idea." Ed Mercer says. He reaches for the left sleeve tied around Kelly's waist, then releases it with a sigh of disgust. The electronics embedded near the cuff have been torn apart, but he grasps the wrist of the green jacket she wears, then looks to its owner. "You lead a charmed life, Reverend."

"A blessed one, sir." She wishes, though, that like Paul and his fellow prisoners, her prayers would be answered in immediacy and an Angel would act to have the chains fall from Alara.

"Whatever. Listen, we can't risk calling John for fear the phony Mercer, Grayson or Kitan will hear, can't predict where they're going to be in Gamma but I'll take the chance that none of them are in Botany. I want you to call Lieutenant Schapp, have him go to Engineering. If none of them are there and John is, have him have John call you."

"Yes, sir."

xx

The Botany Department is closed during Gamma shift, not for the occasionally quipped reason that plants need light to grow but because the entire department consists of five people who are truly busy only when the ship makes planetfall.

Thus, Kevin Schaap is deep in sleep and though he's having dreams that involve plants it's of a lush field shared with an equally lush and perhaps suitably fertile young woman who calls his name in the throes of ecstatic consideration of planting and seeds. 'Kevin. Kevin. Kevviinnn.'

"Kevin?" doesn't sound like the same voice, isn't said in the same tones and definitely lacks the promises of

"Kevin? Kevin, can you hear me? Kevin, are you _there_? _Kevin_!"

"Wh-oo? Whaaa?"

"Kevin, it's _Crystal_! I need your help!"

Still an appeal, and from a beautiful woman, true, but nothing like – "Crystal?"

"Where are you?"

The urgency pulls him further out of his dream but still leaves him in a place no less surreal. "I'm in bed."

"Are you alone?" pushes it from surreal to the outrageous.

"Mother, I respect you and all but that's really none of your bus–"

"This is Captain Mercer," comes the last voice he could have expected. He doesn't want to think of the dream, a field of flowers _or_ the ship's Chaplain and their CO. "I need you to find Lieutenant Commander LaMarr _without_ using the intercom or communicators. Tell him I need him in Cargo Bay 2 immediately and he is to bring a Type NP Cutting Beam." Schaap repeats it for confirmation. "Be sure you tell him it is a Thirteen Button Salute."

"I have it, sir." He's not at all sure what he has, but he'll relay the cryptic message.

"Tell no one about this. Not Lieutenant Kitan, Commander Grayson and especially not me."

\- - - "You, sir?"

"Thirteen Button Salute, Lieutenant. _MOVE it_!"

xx

"We have got to be more thorough in indoctrinations," Mercer says as Kelly turns off the communicator on the sleeve of her loaned green uniform jacket.

"With respect, Captain," Crystal says in defense of her traveling companion, "I don't know what a Thirteen Button Salute is either."

The look Mercer gives his XO means 'add it to the next general briefing'. "A 'Thirteen Button Salute', Reverend," and he decides he can hardly fault her for not knowing, as she is as far outside the Chain of Command as an Officer can possibly be, "is a code that signals that a ship has fallen to a hostile force and Union Central is to be notified immediately."

"So, what do we do now?"

Mercer takes in the resources of his team, particularly the chained woman on the deck before them. "We wait."

He can see how much this plan contents his Security Chief.

xx

By good fortune the wait is but fourteen minutes before Alara perks up her attention. "They're here."

More acute attention reveals the muffled sound of voices penetrating the door. The portal had been locked, which delays the Chief Engineer not at all, though it opens to two very surprised men.

"I _knew_ there had to be some reason," LaMarr, clad in brown pants and casual blue jacket, probably the first things his hands had closed on, declares, "why you were all acting like jerks."

"I'll bear it in mind," Mercer says. "SitRep."

"We're headed for Earth like a Dumarian who just docked during the height of the mating season."

Mercer could do without that image but Kelly, glancing at Schaap, finds less humor in his staring at her, particularly with Ed's jacket wrapped about her hips, for despite the adequate cover it does leave the line of her right side bare and the entire garment reaches only to her knees. "_Refocus your eyes, Lieutenant_!"

He snaps to ramrod Attention, gaze locked on one of the crates. "SIR! I mean Ma'am!"

But she finds she can't keep too much aggravation. He was, after all, the key to their rescue, and as she might observe to Alara or Claire on any other occasion 'Damn, I've still got it.'

"Will _somebody _get me out of these?" snaps through the bay with even greater force.

x

The laser tool is a compact, hand-held model, but its beam is very powerful and consequently fantastically hot. An examination by LaMarr and Schaap reveals that only two lengths of chain were used, one for her arms and hands, the other shorter one for her ankles. The locks are considerably less dense and thus it is simply a matter of careful aim.

While they work Kelly, having had enough of the virtually bottomless image her borrowed clothes imply, steps to the large synthesizer at the far end of the short front wall. She activates the verbal interface.

"One Duty Uniform, Grayson, Kelly, with appropriate undergarments."

The materialization field rises and falls and the blue and black garments appear folded in a stack, the white garments atop.

The communicator, imbedded in the left sleeve, is already programmed for her. She has no need to test it, and no intention of risking a transmission to anywhere.

When she looks over the room it's with the distressing realization that in order to accommodate the vast number of seed crates destined for Catonis II, every bit of space beyond the first ten feet is piled high with plastic crates, creating a ten by twenty room without an inch of cover.

Across that space Alara is free and being helped to her feet, and from her grip on Schaap's arm she's probably lost much of the circulation in her feet.

Kelly can't go outside until they're ready for whatever plan they can devise so she has no choice but to change here. The two women she doesn't worry about, she and Alara have seen each other in the sauna and the priest, well… but the men.

x

"Gentlemen," she calls. The five are conversing in a diamond with the women on either side of Ed but LaMarr and Schaap are facing her.

Everyone had looked across at the sound of her 'Officer Voice'.

"Gentlemen, Aboouut – FACE!"

LaMarr and Schaap instantly turn to the far wall with whatever feelings of disappointment she doesn't want to know but Ed, who as Captain need not heed the order of a Commander, turns as well and his smile grows from 'got you' to anticipatory.

'Screw it,' she thinks. 'He knows me inside and out.'

x

But that thought dies under the abuse of what that other 'Ed' had done to her.

She could say out loud whatever it would take to make him behave but she drops her Commander mask and lets the pain, shame and misery shine on her bruised and bloodied countenance.

He turns around and no one will move for the time it takes, but in that final instant she saw his promise that when they retake the ship and all is over, they will resolve much.


	15. The Best Defense

Chapter Fifteen  
The Best Defense

When Kelly, in her proper uniform and having synthesized soap and water to clear the blood from her bruised face, pending Claire's ministrations later, rejoins the others she hands McGee and Mercer their jackets. She silently reminds Ed by her holding of the sleeve to recreate a fresh one with the inset communicator, as she sees Alara also must. He nods the end of their covert conversation.

"What's next?" she asks, grateful still that their captors, no matter how much they resemble them, are not as efficient as they would be. If any of the three invaders had remembered to destroy the communications circuits in the priest's jacket sleeve….

"War Council," Mercer tells her in deadly tones.

"I was just telling the Captain and Alara," LaMarr says, "that _whoever_ they are, they're planning on hitting Luna 4 – "

"Literally," Alara bites.

"At 0853."

x

Mercer is not surprised by that, it's a formidable scheme and he wishes he had more time to stop it. "We can't move against them until we're sure we can take them out at the same time, which is probably the start of Alpha shift."

"Right," LaMarr says, sounding like he's looking forward to coming to grips with the three imposters. He wants a chance to educate the phony Mercer after what he'd done to Kelly. "They've been cutting a swath through the ship all day while distracting the crew with war games, and they've probably been sabotaging our systems so we can't change course. They've almost certainly been planting a ton of booby-traps."

"Your first concern: Go over everywhere they've been. You and your people quietly and subtly check everything you can think of and make sure we _haven't _been booby trapped."

"If they're so sure," Schaap says, "that they've taken over and are going to crash the ship, would they plant booby traps in case we don't?"

"I would," Mercer assures him.

"We won't need much of a change, would we?" Crystal asks. "Less than a hundredth, or even a thousandth, of a degree?"

Mercer gives her an appraising look. "Any time you want to transfer over to Navigation –"

"_No Way_!" is Crystal and John's unintended duet.

x

"It's true that this far out," Ed says, "an alteration of a thousandth of a degree will be more than enough to miss Luna, or at the very least Lunar Base 4."

"Which Louisa and Gordon will correct as soon as they see it," Crystal assumes.

"Your job. Get to them before they come on duty, tell them that whatever they see, to let it happen and stay mum."

"What if Ensign Sportelli makes the course change?" Schaap asks but four heads shake and LaMarr puts it into words.

"That phony Mercer would blow her brain out."

x

"Are you sure they'll use booby traps?" Crystal says, more to feel she's contributing.

"Count on it," LaMarr declares. "They're almost certain to have sabotaged the systems. Change course, slow down, blow ourselves to kingdom come."

"Your people check everything, and you have too little time to pull it through."

"I'll need all three shifts and," he glances to McGee, "you pray no one notices us."

"I will," she promises.

"No risks by anyone," Mercer declares. "Change course or slow us down, either way we need time for the Union to mobilize the fleet in answer to our message." He hadn't checked if the 'Salute' had gone out because he doesn't believe the man would fail.

x

"So we'll hit them on the bridge in," he checks the chronometer posted at the control panel, "one hour. Meantime," he glances at Schaap, "you quietly relay what's happened to everyone you see. Don't use the intercom or communicator, just take a long walk."

"I understand, sir."

"We'll stay here."

"_Here_?" Kelly has finally heard a part of the plan that she detests.

"They saw before that we were helpless to fight them. I don't believe they'll be back to check on us before they've spent some establishment time on the bridge."

"And if one or more of them do?"

The smile Mercer favors her with is absolutely feral. "Game Over."

xxx

The starship's bridge, though dimly lit on Night Watch, is in no way the appropriate venue for a devious plot or an epic battle. It is, in fact, utterly unremarkable as one by one the Alpha Shift officers exchange places with their Gamma shift counterparts. Isaac has never felt a need for a break and therefore has spent Gamma shift at his station following a most interesting evening with the Finn family.

Gordon Malloy and Louisa Sportelli enter together, giving many signs of coming off a long and engaging conversation, and they are followed a minute later by Kitan, who relieves Ens. Mace of his duty - he has no idea that it's forever - minutely if unobtrusively scans the bridge and the exchanging officers.

Bortus arrives, taking his place beside the Security Chief and last are Mercer and Grayson.

Lt. Jan Margolin rises from the center Starboard seat to face her C.O. "Transferring Command to you, sir. We are now 52 minutes out from Earth."

"Accepted, Lieutenant. Any problems?"

"Nope. So quiet up here I never even heard the mouse."

Isaac turns slightly right, unnecessary as he has no face but he has adopted some of the mannerisms of the humans he was sent to study. "There are presently no rodents aboard Orville. The last such were a pair of Mus musculus domesticus brought aboard by Life Sciences in an effort to study the effects of Quantum Drive upon –."

"Yes, sir." Margolin knows that, uninterrupted, the Kaylon might well launch into a dissertation on the white mice, the theories involved, the tests and results of same, likely expounding upon the subject through the various stages of research.

"All right, Lieutenant, I have the bridge. Get some rest." As she steps away, he concludes that "You never know what can happen out here."

"Yes, sir." As she heads for the door, Margolin hears the Captain's order to 'Begin Day Watch'.

The light intensity doubles and then: "Charge all weapons and prepare to fire at my command" halts her in mid-stride at the doorway.

x

Gordon Malloy, even though briefed by the Chaplain on the staggering recent events, turns so quickly he risks whiplash. "Captain, is that really necessary?"

"You heard my order, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." He turns to his board, having no intention of implementing said order when pandemonium erupts behind him.

x

Alara Kitan, Ed Mercer and Kelly Grayson nearly barrel Jan Margolin off her feet as they charge onto the bridge.

She clutches the door frame, is grabbed from her right by the Chaplain and tugged out into the corridor as she sees Alara, at near breakneck speed, dash around the Command chairs and slam her fists en passant into the heads of the two blue and black uniformed officers to complete her charge in an attack of astonishing violence against the seated Security Chief.

"Gordon!" Mercer yells as he nears the man in his chair. He'd gotten confirmation from LaMarr that the traps had been found and disabled one second before ordering the charge. "Change Course! Any Course!"

"You got it, _Captain_!" the pilot snaps, putting the ship into a tight turn.

"Isaac, assist Alara!" Ed concludes, the command tight on the previous one. The Kaylon, with sensors rather than eyes, is in no doubt as to which of the women battering each other is his shipmate.

Mercer had planned to take on his duplicate but had reckoned without Kelly's fury and the violence she unleashes upon her rapist, leaving him to contest with a severely addled Grayson reeling from Alara's attack.

There might, somewhere, have been a shorter space battle but no one believes there has been one more violent or decisive. From initial charge to final outcome a mere thirteen seconds have elapsed before the three invaders are rendered impotent upon the deck.

In one case that description may hold a dramatic and drastic application.

Or as Jan Margolin acknowledges the ringleader's observation, "You never know what can happen out here."

xxx

In short order following the retaking of the Orville and the capture of the invaders, each share a cell in the ship's brig.

They have been relieved of uniforms and everything that could conceivably be of use, no matter how disguised. A broad application of the Captain's orders reduced the trio to their underwear, though Kelly had objected to even that generosity in the fake Mercer's case.

The outer door slides open to admit three officers, mirror images of the man and women seated in the main cell. Mercer looks up at his twin, but unlike the new arrival the hate on his face is virtually palpable.

"So, you've come to gloat. Our roles are reversed, you have us, but your 'victory' will change nothing."

Ed will not rise to the challenge. "I thought you'd like to know that we are holding station outside the orbit of Pluto. We found all your sabotage and everything has been corrected. Your next stop is a Supermax Prison while the Union breaks you."

"You fool," Mercer says, standing to confront his captor, "you've won nothing. Oh, a slight delay, but you still lose."

"You know, I often wondered what it would be like to meet myself, but all I see in you is hate; so much in fact that I don't even want to interrogate you. I don't care about your plan, there are people who can get answers out of you no matter how long it takes."

"You know, I almost hate to disappoint you."

And he brings his first two fingers to the artery under his right ear, shoves hard, a moment later his knees buckle and he falls to the deck.

"Drop the field!" is a near yell to the Security Officer as Kitan raises her hand to below her right ear and as quickly the life fades from her eyes.

The field drops, Alara reaches her doppelganger too late and the Xelayan lays limp in her original's grasp.

Four determined officers converge upon Kelly's imposter, determined to do all they can to immobilize her.

"Relax," she says with more calm than anyone would have credited her for. "No way am I committing suicide."

Alara touches the communicator embedded in her left sleeve. Claire Finn will make that exit impossible.

xxx

"Chaplain's Log, December 24, 2420. Merry Christmas Eve. That's it. I have no more words," Crystal McGee says into seemingly empty air. She sits in her quarters, at the table before the last of the large slanted windows that this time display still stars. Sol is before the ship, so distant it could be a wan point of light that would offer no heat out here near Pluto's orbit. The stars form a three dimensional tableau of lights billions or trillions or more miles away, but there seems nothing placid about them at all.

She's learned the computer will hold the pause indefinitely until she indicates she's done with recording either by leaving or any other sign.

This is good, for: "I simply cannot put these past few hours into anything that would make sense, even if I _am_ the only one who'll hear it.

"Merry Christmas, though merry is probably far from likely.

"They say one of the purposes of a Log is to help you think, by forcing you to put your thoughts into words, but I don't know what to think. I know what I should think to put these days into some kind of order, something that makes sense.

"But I don't know what to think.

"The Orville was invaded, infiltrated, I don't know what word they'll settle on, by people that look like Captain Mercer, Commander Grayson and Security Chief Kitan and now two of them are dead and the ship is on Yellow Alert. Everyone is to continue inspecting their assigned areas for any further threats. For me that's pretty easy, my quarters and office are the only places assigned to me and no one has been to either except Alara - the real Alara I'm sure - since I boarded.

"The Captain, the real Captain, made that announcement that two of the invaders are dead and we're holding station until someone comes out here, some twenty minutes ago, ending with a reassurance that everything is under control.

"I guess I have to believe him.

"The Chaplain in me would go to someone and offer Last Rites, the woman hasn't a blessed idea what to do."

xx

In Sick Bay the three officers so recently violated do have an idea how to proceed and it centers on the dark woman who steps out through the sliding door of the sterile field-saturated Operation Suite. The suite contains a bio analyzer among other specialized equipment and Mercer wants to know what answers the woman and her team have pulled from it.

Claire Finn pulls off the blue surgical gown and pushes it into the synthesizer slot in the right wall and the garment vanishes in a column of light, reduced to its basic molecules. Would that the question, and the mystery, would dissolve as quickly.

The three have given her the seconds to speak first, but Mercer considers time to be up. "Well, doctor?"

She doesn't rush an answer, but time is indeed expired.

"I removed this from adjacent to her right carotid artery," she says, holding up a device so small it could get lost in her fingers. "I'm not sure what it is yet, that waits on analysis, but from the video you showed me it's fast and lethal."

"Can she talk?"

"She's awake, but whether she will say anything is another issue."

This is no surprise, as she hadn't said a word since her forced removal from the brig.

"I intend to get some answers."

"Then I have a doozy for you. Before I began the operation, I took a genetic sample from each of them. I wanted to find out who they are."

"Did you get any answers?" Somehow three people had infiltrated the ship who carried their roles so perfectly they were able to fool every person they came into contact with.

"Yes, nurse Carter did. I identified them as Edward Mercer and Kelly Grayson of Earth and Alara Kitan of Xelaya."

"What, you mean they're _clones_?"

"No. I don't know how this can be, but they are definitely not clones. There are too many variances that I can't explain, and too many expected variances are missing."

"Then what are they?"

x

At that moment Isaac enters. "Captain, you will require this information."

"What?" He doesn't care about interruption, timing or anything of the kind. If the Kaylon has information, he wants it.

"An analysis of the bodies of the man and woman in stasis reveals that, genetically, they are identical to yourself and Lieutenant Kitan except for their quantum signatures. There are distinct differences in" and here commences a long run of terms Mercer has never heard before, nor can he follow the Kaylon's explanation.

"What is that in English?"

If Isaac had a face, other than Gordon's one-time contribution, Mercer might have been interested in its expression, but the tone of his voice is as pedantic as usual.

"All matter in our universe exists with a universal quantum signature, a vibrational frequency and length common to all matter. It is one of the fundamental constants of existence. Our prisoners do not exhibit the quantum signature of our universe."

"And that _means_?"

"They are not native to our cosmos."


	16. Inquisition

Chapter Sixteen  
Inquisition

"Wait a minute," Mercer commands Isaac in the Sick Bay, needing a moment to catch up following the Kaylon's dramatic revelation. "Are you saying that we're facing some sort of Mirror universe Terran Empire thing?"

Kelly Grayson, knowing her ex-husband as she does, is not surprised. She realizes she hadn't known she was well off when he'd sprung that Captain's Log two mornings ago, though she admits the image of him with that gold metallic sash about his waist would be dashing if she could at least stay clear of midriff uniform fashions, but Isaac cuts the digression off at the knees.

"You have reached an unwarranted conclusion. More data is required for an accurate assessment of their origin and determination of how they were able to transpose into our cosmos."

Kelly considers this must be Kaylonian for 'do not jump to delusions; stand down and let the adults talk.'

She admits it would be easier to do had the ship not been invaded by duplicates of Mercer, Kitan and herself, bringing with them plans for destruction and war. Two of the invaders had committed suicide rather than give up their secrets, and her own twin is in force field restraint on a bed in the Operating Theater beyond the wall while the three originals, together with Finn and Isaac, strive to find out what the _Hell_ is going on.

x

"Then what can you tell us?" Ed demands. When he had reported to Admiral Halsey, their command chief for this sector, he'd had answers that he'd thought had made sense. He doesn't want to contact Union Central with the follow-up report this is shaping up to be.

This mission had been, on the surface, so simple; a flight to Catonis II to deliver seeds and assorted farming supplies and equipment, and even when the mission had been upped a notch with the destruction caused by extreme weather and the need to involve Dr. Aronov and his Quantum Accelerator, the issue had remained manageable.

Now it seems that nothing is.

x

"What do you have," he demands of his Science Officer.

"Little more than has previously been determined and reported."

"There's one thing that scares me," Kelly declares.

Ed can hardly believe this. "_One _thing?"

"When those three came aboard, however they did it, they did so under cover of darkness. We were so distracted by the loss of lights and gravity no one considered it was a cover for an invasion. My counterpart said they were going to leave pretty much the same way, except without the distraction.

"But even if they could know the Orville would be on its way to Catonis II, they couldn't have known we'd sped up, so we should have missed any rendezvous they planned, yet they hit us. How did they know where we would be and when?"

"The same applies for any scheduled extraction," Alara points out.

"You're right," Ed says. "That is scary as hell. We thought these three might be an advance guard infiltrating the ship for a mission to sow fear and chaos. But someone had to tell them the where and the when."

"We've been infiltrated," Alara says. "And not just this ship."

One person has answers. He turns to Claire. "She's awake?"

"Awake, but not talkative."

"I don't care."

xx

It's still disconcerting to have his former wife and First Officer standing beside him and also lying upon the diagnostic bed, restrained by an invisible field of force. Her patient's light blue shift is enhanced by a length of gauze wrapped about her throat. Try as he does, he can find no point of difference between the two Kellys.

'Two Kellys.' He remembers all the times when one had been quite enough. 'Not once have I ever imagined this and I hope I never see it again.'

Alara, Claire and Isaac also surround the bed, an imposing image but Mercer only cares about answers, not feelings. "They tell me you're from a different quantum universe."

"Is that what they say?" the faux Kelly asks, apparently more interested in the overhead plates.

"Why?"

"We transitioned here to kill you and destroy your government leadership," is her too calm admission.

"You're prevented from suiciding; your mission is a failure and your only hope of survival rests with your answering our questions."

She has not broken her stare with the overhead so to that she says with few inflections "My life is nothing, and neither are my answers. I made the mistake of wanting to live, but I see I have nothing to live for, so I choose not to help you."

"Captain," Isaac says, his mechanical voice, his lack of a face to offer any expression gives Mercer a chill he hasn't experienced with the Kaylon in a long time. "I believe I can offer an option that will allow the rapid securement of the data you require."

"What?"

"My analysis of human methods of extracting data indicates there is an extensive storehouse of methods that will convince her to become cooperative."

Something in the toneless assurance of the words, the expressionless lack of a face, forces the certainty into his soul and he feels his body temperature drop.

"Wait a second. You're saying you intend to _torture_ it out of her?"

The restrained Kelly's face now contains all the expression absent from the mechanoid's, all centering upon horror.

x

"It is a commonly employed stratagem in the histories of thousands of worlds, including your own."

"_NO_!" Kelly's voice, in two tones, comes in stereo, one outraged and the other fearful.

"We do not torture our prisoners. The Union Charter, somewhere in those three hundred pages, forbids it."

"Kaylon 1 is not an adherent to the Union. Further, the limited time remaining and the dearth of information requires expeditious action."

He would move on to his next argument but Claire Finn is more direct, stepping between the mechanoid and the immobilized woman, outrage filling the space. "You are _not_ going to torture my patient."

"She did say," Alara cuts in, her gaze turned to the wall chronometer "that they were going to leave before we crashed into Luna 4."

It is already past the time of that extraction and their crash, so if the extraction is still going to happen, they are on borrowed time and all the woman before them would need to do is to stall.

x

Edward Mercer has had to make many unpleasant decisions in his career, most of which had consequences for others more than himself, but this is different not only in degree but essence.

This is as much an issue of morality as of security. Even leaving off the law, there is a matter of agonizing immediacy. There may, or may not, be a time constraint but this is information they _must_ have. Hundreds of worlds may hang in the balance, billions of lives potentially lost or saved. Isaac is a machine; he knows only programming, data, logic and efficiency. If he orders it, he has no doubt the Kaylonian will work with the utmost efficiency to secure the answers.

If only there were someone impartial whom he could consult. Kelly, Claire, and to a lesser degree Alara transmit their thoughts in their faces. Alara's decision may not be one sided; a Security Officer must see a situation like this through a different lens, perhaps enough to leave her ambivalent in this matter. He will not consider a new crew person like McGee, regardless of her professional detachment, because even without knowing her he's sure of her stand. Gordon? John? _Mooska_?"

There is no one to make this decision with him. In the end, there is only one with whom he can consult.

He steps past Claire, looks down into the eyes that twin those of the woman he'd loved and married, and lost and found and fought and still loves. He wishes they were different.

"You must understand that if I tell him to, he will extract that information. Make it easy on yourself and talk."

The faux Kelly breaks her stare with the overhead that she had maintained through the debate and turns her head until their gazes lock. "You are more of an imbecile than I'd thought."

x

He turns to Isaac. "Do it."

"CaCapEdpttainin!" is an indistinguishable, three-ply protest he must cut through.

"Move out." None of the outraged women want to move. "That's an order."

He is the last to move and, as he looks back, he sees thin filaments extend from each of the Kaylon's fingertips.

xx

In the outer room they are unprepared for the immediacy of the first scream which cuts through the wall that should have contained the most horrid cries of wounded crewmembers. Claire has turned on him first but Mercer's upheld hand halts her charge. Before she can give voice to her outrage a piercing screech cuts through the barrier.

He wants to stop this. They _need_ the information this woman has.

"Ed!" Kelly's voice cuts through nerves. He can imagine her thoughts at what the implacable Kaylon is doing; he won't allow himself to picture her on that table, but a long shriek tears at his soul.

The three had infiltrated the ship with plans to kill. Even now the Union stands on the precipice of disaster.

He knows that inside that room Isaac is employing the most efficient methods devised over millennia on worlds the number of which he doesn't want to consider, and all with the same emotional content the Science Officer would employ in listing the circuits found in a door panel.

He has to get this information to Union Central. Who can say how many lives hang in the balance?

He clenches his fists as another scream cuts through him, and it goes on and on to the point when agony empties lungs, and quite probably the pain does not diminish.

He can't stop it. They would have killed his crew, hundreds, maybe thousands of others and plunged the galaxy into war.

A few seconds later a screech, even louder, blasts through the wall.

"That's it, I've had this," Claire grates, starting past him.

He grabs her arm. "They were willing to die rather than reveal –."

"I don't care!"

What he would say is cut, not by a scream but by a soft voice amplified from the overhead.

x

"Good afternoon," the woman's voice says, her tone floating in a gentle Irish brogue. "Merry and Blessed Christmas, Chanukah and all other appropriate greetings. This is Lieutenant Crystal McGee. I'm, well, I invite you to the First Service of Christmas, that is, the Christmas Eve Service of Lessons and Carols, to be held in the ship's Holodeck at 1700 hours. Thank you."

The invitation is punctuated by a shriek.

x

He whirls toward the door, restraint broken so sharply he pulls the physician instead of restraining her.

"Stop!" is out before the portal is fully open.

Mercer can see, in that first moment, an unknown number of filaments retract into Isaac's mechanical fingers and the tips of those digits close.

He doesn't want to know.

Isaac turns about, as emotionally vested as though he were seated at his post. On the table the woman's chest heaves in huge gasps, her sobs loud upon their souls.

"The process is incomplete," comes almost in a chiding tone. "I have not succeeded in extracting the information you require," he says with all the emotional content he would employ in giving an atmospheric analysis of the room.

"Never mind that. Back off."

x

When the four surround the table the gasping woman upon it is bathed in perspiration and yet shows no marks of the torment she had suffered. Mercer has no doubt that no marks would be found upon or in her body. The torture had been very efficient and could have lasted a full day or more at that terrible level.

"Will you tell us?"

The woman slowly turns her head and it takes a deep and tightly held breath to regain enough control with which to say "No."

xxx

Ed Mercer had not wanted to contact Union Central and the white-haired Admiral Halsey so soon and with so incomplete a report, but between himself and Kelly Grayson they manage to complete a sufficient summary of the situation.

"Admiral, I don't believe we will get anything out of her at this point, not without using methods of … questionable merit." He hadn't reported yet what methods had been used. Such a report is not to be given other than in person. If there are consequences, they must fall upon him alone.

"Neither do I," the venerable man replies. When next he speaks, his tone is grim. "Transport the woman and the bodies of the other two to Central Security; I am sending a ship to rendezvous with you. After this, resume your course to Catonis II. Dr. Aronov will be waiting with his machine. Then resume your mission." He leans closer toward the pick-up. "You and your crew are relieved of all responsibility in this matter. It is being classified Top Secret. Your orders are to reveal nothing to anyone outside the Admiralty. Signify your understanding of this."

Both Mercer and Grayson formally acknowledge the order.

"We owe you all an unrepayable debt. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Admiral."

And with that the image switches to the Planetary Union sigil, a definite period to the conversation.


	17. Emmanuel

Chapter Seventeen  
Emmanuel

The rendezvous with the ship from Union Security was disturbing. While it's true he wasn't turning over his ex-wife and First Officer to the six armed men, the scene was still eerie. As the red and black uniformed officers took the woman and the two corpses on stretchers to the shuttle, the live captive in thick restraints, he found he couldn't speak and she did not. The whole affair had a surreal pall that made him long for the second when it would be over.

Alara and three of her men had overseen the transfer, a total of ten uniformed guards to handle the lone woman and two cadavers, three who had posed and continue to pose an indefinable threat to the Union.

He wishes he could wash his hands of her as easily as getting her off the ship had been.

x

He'd said nothing on the way to the bridge, his First Officer his only company and he doesn't want to think of her silent thoughts.

"I picked England, Renaissance era."

"That's goo–" He slams to so hard a stop he nearly falls and turns to her. "_What_?"

"Gordon has an informal pool up and I picked Renaissance England as where the site will be for this Christmas Eve Service at 1700." It's very near that time now. "Chaplain McGee has the entirety of Earth's Cathedrals, Churches and so forth for the setting in the Holodeck, and most of the crew are wondering what she'll choose."

"Kel, I – We've had the most hellish experience _I_ can imagine; I don't want to think of what it's doing to you and you're –."

"It's because I don't want to deal with this right now that I'm doing this." She sighs so sharply her shoulders crash. "I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this but I need this, the Service and all, or I'm going to lose my mind before I have time to begin processing this. The pool, well, that's just a distraction."

And the rest of the trip is covered in that silence where too many words demand entrance.

xx

Their return to the Bridge brings the silence with them. As they'd approached, they'd heard conversations but those stop like the closing a coffin lid as they enter and take their places.

Finally, it's 1642 and Ed has had all the quiet he can take. Beta Shift had come, the officers taking their places but Lt. M'Goya had to stand off go the side until a place opened up where he would sit.

In fact, only four Officers had made the transition, and even Bortus remains at his station, obliging Paul Darrow to occupy a place nearby. Isaac does not seem inclined to depart and Sportelli has remained to carry over into her actual shift.

With the Orville ready to depart Earth orbit to resume its interrupted journey to Catonis II all is in order, a vast improvement over the past two days.

"I don't know about you," Ed says, "but spending the night awake on a steel deck is –"

"The worst."

"After Church I'm going back to my quarters, catch up on that beauty sleep."

"Ditto. You'll need it."

He decides to let that one pass, deciding she has a lot to work through and he can expect a lot of shrapnel as she deals with what that other Mercer did. He's going to carve out a lot of time with her and will enlist Clair and their new Chaplain on the front line.

This evening is a good time to start. They could use an early nightcap but he's sure that when the drinks start flowing so will her words. It's either that or she, and he, may retire to one of their quarters and become roaring drunk. He's in favor of either, or both.

"How are you?" he asks his once and present partner.

"Freaked. There's another _me_ out there. I sometimes wondered at the Australian saying that if you travel too far, you'll wind up meeting yourself. I once wondered seriously if that could happen, what I'd do if I did meet myself one day."

"Freak."

"Freak," is the inevitable admission. "But she's absolutely _nothing_ like me."

"Tell me about it. It was like looking in a Fun House mirror, but warped into some madman. I wouldn't want to spend any time with him."

"I'm glad he's dead."

Kelly, he thinks, has always been a mistress of understatement.

x

"But she's with Security Central," he reminds her of their sole recompense. "I wish I had gotten through to her, gotten some answers."

"She's out of our hands. That's what 'Relieved of Responsibility' means."

"But I wish."

"So do I. I give it until we get done with Catonis before I'm on subspace trying to wear Halsey down."

"I wasn't even going to wait until the approach."

xx

But first comes the evening Eucharist, the first one on Orville and he's definitely going to put in an appearance. This is more than a Captain setting an example for his crew, he wants this.

He needs this.

Standing up, he motions for Kelly to precede him.

"Captain," Bortus says from his port side station, "are you on your way to the Holodeck?"

"Yes, we are," Kelly answers for her chief.

"I would like to join you. If I may."

"Of course, Bortus." Keeping his surprise in check is too difficult to try. "I didn't think you'd be interested."

"On the contrary, I am very curious."

"Well, the more, the merrier. Come on." He catches M'Goya's eye, gives the man a quick wink and signal, then glances back to the pilot board as the three depart. "Ensign Sportelli, you have the Conn."

None glance back as they head through the wide portal in the rear of the bridge as the red-haired woman looks back over her shoulder, her eyes wide, mouth slowly falling open as her face loses four shades of color.

xxx

M'Goya had veered off for a well cherished break; he'll rescue his Navigator in four or five hours (the experience will do her good) so as Mercer, Grayson and Bortus approach the intersection closest to the Holodeck Ed and Kelly continue their friendly wagering on the likely setting for the Service, to the Moclan's considerable surprise.

"It is my understanding, Captain, that you had forbidden the use of such 'games of chance' as this pool reflects."

"I'm, well, relaxing that rule for this one occasion. I think that if there's one thing this crew doesn't need today it's too much regulation."

"In that case, I select the St. Francis Basilica in your Santa Fe region."

Both senior officers are too surprised to find a comment. The Moclan had obviously done some research and made his selection earlier, and as they round the final corner to the short approach to the holodeck, they find something more impressive.

x

Reverend Crystal McGee stands outside the huge closed portal, her ancient traditional garb standing out a shining white in the lights above her.

Of those they can see, a long white robe ends three inches above her white high heeled slippers. The large garment she wears above it is ornately trimmed in gold, and this knee length covering, ending in a wide curve, is accented by a white and gold sash that hangs nearly as long from behind her neck under her flaming hair.

The ends of the sash are decorated on their left with a golden trough overfull with, of all things, hay while on their right shines a refulgent sun.

"Good evening, Reverend," Mercer says for them, the others' greetings are quieter.

"Good evening Captain. Commander. Lieutenant Commander. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." He'll find a way to break her of formality later, unless this is her 'Service Persona'. He'll find out later.

"Captain? Commander? Would it be possible, that is I wonder if I might, well, meet with either off well, talk to one of you later? That is, Commander, I promised _I'_d set some time for _you_ as soon as possible, but I'd… if I may…."

"You want to talk," Kelly doesn't have to work at the guess, "about the possibility there could be another _you_ out there somewhere."

"I know it's not the sort of thing I should dwell on, I mean if there is another me out there … somewhere … she wouldn't be _me_, but I can't put it out of my mind."

"I dare say," Mercer says, "we'll all be dealing with that unknown some time."

"And when there's a crisis of faith people would normally come to the Chaplain, but I…."

"Sure," Kelly says. "Ed and I were going to get together in my quarters at twenty hundred. Join us?"

"_Thank you_," comes in a near gush of relief.

x

"So, that's settled," Mercer says. "We were wondering what you've got for us."

A sharp gasp and jump in her vestments brings the young woman back to herself. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear, I should have started already. First time and I'm nearly a minute late!"

"Don't worry," Ed counsels. "Remember, there are three kinds of time. Objective, Subjective and Orville."

"Oh, that's good," she breathes, coming down from her fright. "I usually like to greet everyone, but we're ready to begin," she says, recovering her aplomb. "If you'll step in and choose a spot, we'll get started."

A glance to Kelly confirms to Ed that she's setting up to see if any of her choices had been selected. He has no preference, just a hope that this evening will help them all.

McGee steps to the door which opens at her presence and as the quartet enters to pause at the entrance, McGee steps forward to the far side of the setting while Ed, Kelly and Bortus stand where they are, impressed by the utter failures of their guesses.

x

It's not a barn, it's a stable, a place for keeping and feeding animals, and those animals move about intermingled with the crew. John is nearly wedged between two cows which chew on mouthfuls of hay while Gordon and Alara seem to wonder what to do about the sheep that don't quite nudge them off their feet. Chickens and at least two roosters make their ways through feet of two score crewmen and -women, one of whom leans upon the side of a donkey. Down the middle of the stable's length, which McGee passes along, her regalia flowing, runs a long trough filled with hay and other fare fit for various animals which contentedly eat their meals. Though they are quiet, and there is no olfactory enhancement to the image, had they been left to their inclinations they may have set up a frightful din at the intrusion of so many humans and others into their territory.

The Officers step in and the widely open door that appears behind them as the metal portal closes shows a dark night and ancient buildings not close, a town of several hundred attempting to accommodate several thousand. When they look up and behind them, they can see a myriad of stars filling the heavens.

There are three people who are distinguished by the fact that they wear neither uniforms nor off-duty attire. A short-bearded man wearing ancient and hard worn robes reclines against the edge of the long trough while a woman sits reclined at his side. Resting in the hay, undisturbed by the livestock dining a meter beyond his feet, a newborn baby, small and snugly wrapped in bands of cloth, rests awake, his small fist wrapped about his mother's finger while his father strokes and arranges his thatch of brown hair.

x

"I do not understand," Bortus says, his voice an answer to the occasional question 'do Moclans ever whisper?' "I had been told this event is a Festive one."

"That's right," Ed says considerably more quietly. "This is the greatest event to take place on our planet."

"Good evening," Crystal's voice, as she stands at the head of the room just beyond the end of the long manger and close beyond the young family, is not loud but fills the silence. "Welcome, and a Blessed Christmas to you all.

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.'

"Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in highest heaven, and on Earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

"When the Angels had left them and gone into Heaven, the shepherds said to one another 'Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord told us about,'

"So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

"The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

x

Music begins, falling from the overhead speakers in what is still the Orville's Holodeck, and those who know the words join with the invisible singers:

"Hark, the Herald Angels sing, Glory to the newborn King. Peace on Earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled…."

.

.

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Next Voyage: Answers to horrible questions threaten nightmares, and the Planetary Union may never be the same


End file.
